The Court affirmed its lack of jurisdiction to issue a writ of quo warranto against a Chief Minister, reinforcing the Governor's exclusive authority under constitutional provisions.

1. Art.164(1) of the Constitution lays down :
"The Chief Minister shall be appointed by the Governor and the other Ministers shall be appointed by the Governor on the advice of the Chief Minister, and the Ministers shall hold office during the pleasure of the Governor."

2. Whether the High Court in exercise of its high prerogative writ jurisdiction under Art.226 of the Constitution would issue a writ of quo warranto or a writ by way of information in the nature of quo warranto declaring that the Chief Minister of the State, duly elected to the Legislative Assembly, appointed and sworn in by the Governor in accordance with Cls.(1) and (3) of Art.164 of the Constitution has forfeited his right to continue in office on the grounds raised and the allegations made in the affidavit is the important constitutional issue that arises for decision in this writ petition.

3. The submission made by Sri S. Ramachandra Rao, the learned counsel for the petitioner, was that the gravity of the charges levelled against the first respondent, Chief Minister, Sri N. T. Rama Rao, was so serious as to shock the conscience of the Court; this Court which was entitled to mould the relief in such manner as was most suited for furthering the ends of justice should not hesitate to declare that he (the Chief Minister) had forfeited his right to hold the office; and no technical plea, either of locus standi or of justiciability, should be allowed to stand in the way of a decision being rendered on the merits of the case. He also added that the charges levelled against the Chief Minister remained unrebutted in spite of his having filed a counter - affidavit.

4. Sri K. Parasaran, the learned Attorney General, who appeared to assist the Court at our request, after having made an enlightening analysis of the constitutional scheme, expressed his opinion that normally Courts would not be justified in issuing a writ of quo warranto declaring that the Chief Minister had forfeited his right to continue in office unless it was alleged and proved that he had incurred a disqualification as prescribed by the Constitution itself or any law made by the Parliament. To support his view, he referred us to the Full Bench decision of the Kerala High Court in K.C. Chandy v. R. Balakrishna Pillai , AIR 1986 Ker. 116 , which has been followed by the Division Bench of the Kerala High Court in K. Sukumaran v. Union of India , AIR 1987 Ker. 212 and a single Bench of the Madras High Court in Ramachandran v. M. G. Ramachandran , AIR 1987 Mad. 207 .

5. On behalf of the first respondent, Chief Minister, we have had the advantage of hearing the eminent counsel, Sri N. A. Palkhivala, who substantially concurred with the views expressed by the learned Attorney General in regard to the legal and constitutional position to which reference has already been made in para. 4 (supra). It was also his contention that what we were concerned with here was purely a political interest litigation, not a public interest litigation; and that neither the petitioner had the locus standi to maintain the writ petition nor this Court had the jurisdiction to grant the relief sought. The learned Advocate General, who appeared for the second respondent, the Government of Andhra Pradesh, had also taken the stand that the petition for the issue of quo warranto was not maintainable in law. On behalf of the three interveners, Sri K. Ramakrishna Reddy, Sri M. Narasiah and Sri K. R. K. Vara Prasad advanced the arguments.

6. We do not consider it necessary to decide the question of locus standi in this writ petition, in the nature of the decision we propose to take in the matter.

7. The disqualification