The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed as withdrawn a public interest plea seeking direction to the central government that the new Parliament building should be inaugurated by the President of India Droupadi Murmu instead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi presiding over the inaugural ceremony and inaugurating the new building on May 28.

As PIL petitioner advocate C R Jaya Sukin argued that the President addresses the joint session of parliament at the start of the budget session, the new building too should be inaugurated by the President, a vacation bench of Justice J K Maheshwari and Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha while dismissing the PIL by an advocate asked what was the correlation between the two – addressing the joint session of parliament and the inauguration of the new building.

As the court dismissed the PIL as withdrawn, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta expressed the apprehension that the PIL petitioner may now approach the high court with the same plea and urged the bench to dismiss it straight away to obviate any fresh attempt to resurrect the plea, the petitioner advocate said that he will not approach any High Court raising the issue again.

In the course of hearing, the petitioner advocate said that the new parliament building should be inaugurated by the President Droupadi Murmu as Prime Minister Modi, like other  parliamentarians was just one of the Lok Sabha members.

However, his submissions did not impress the bench.

The scheduled inauguration of the new parliament building by Prime Minister Modi on May 28 has been criticised by different sections of people. Almost all the opposition parties, who demanded that the new building be inaugurated by the President Droupadi Murmu, have decided to boycott the inauguration ceremony.

The public interest plea by the advocate had stated that the statement by the Lok Sabha Secretariat on May 18, including the invite by its Secretary General, on the inauguration of the new parliament building is “illegal, arbitrary, high handed, whimsical and unfair, abuse of authority and against the principles of natural justice.”

The petitioner advocate has said that the President holds a pivotal position in the functioning of the Indian State, and the appointments to all the constitutional functionaries including that of the Prime Minister, members of the Council of Ministers, Governors, Judges of both Supreme Court and high courts, Chief Election Commissioner, Election commissioners and others are made by the President.

It had said that “Parliament is the supreme legislative body of India. The Indian Parliament comprises the President and the two Houses – Rajya Sabha (Council of States) and Lok Sabha (House of the People). The President has the power to summon and prorogue either House of Parliament or to dissolve the Lok Sabha.”