By Harihar Swarup
Governor is neither a decorative emblem nor a glorified cipher. His powers are limited but he has an important constitutional role to play in the governance of the state and strengthening federalism. He is head of the state and all chief ministers, including the Tamil Nadu chief minister, must remember it. All governors too must remain true to their oath of “preserving, protecting and defining the constitution”. What happened in Chennai recently was shocking and demonstrate the trust deficit between governor and the Chief Minister. But what governor R N Ravi, an appointee of the BJP government at the Centre, did was neither new nor surprising: Governors appointed by Congress governments in the past had behaved similarly.
Does a governor have the right to edit the address prepared by the government? What are the constitutional implications of a governor deleting or adding paragraph to the address? Does a governor have a duty to repeat even false facts and wrong figures?
A good Governor must stay above politics and manifestly be seen as impartial and fair. In 1937 when the Congress won elections in seven provinces, it took office on the condition that the British Governors would not interfere in the functioning of the ministries and refrain from exercising “discretion and special powers”. After independence, India conferred the same special powers on the governors.
The governor is an integral part of legislative assembly. He calls its sessions and he dissolves the House. Under Article 176(2)(b), he has the right to address first sessions of the house. The address is an integral part of constitutional symbolism and has huge significance. True, the Constitution gives no discretion to the governors in the matter of convening session of the assembly. Parliamentary democracy being the basic structure of our constitution, this is the prerogative of the cabinet though Article 174 does say that the governors from time to time summons the assembly to meet at such time and place “he thinks fit”. Governors have no business to question the purpose of convening of the sessions of the house. A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court in Nabam Rebia (2016) had observed that Arunachal Pradesh governor, J P Rajkhowa, who advanced the session of the Assembly without the advice of the chief minister, had exceeded its jurisdiction as he has no discretion in convening the session.
Recent developments have revived the debate about the governor—cabinet relationship and the role of the governor in parliamentary democracy though this is not for the first time that a governor has refused to read the address sent by the government. In 1967, Rajasthan Governor Sampurnanand did it. In Yogender Singh Handa v. government of Rajasthan (1967) the Rajasthan High Court held that some portion read by Governor was good enough to deem the whole address as read. On February 8, 1965, when governor’s request for “silence, silence, permit me to address” was ignored. West Bengal governor Padmaja Naidu left the Assembly without delivering the ceremonial address. The speaker took the chair and announced that the governor had been pleased to make her speech and lay a copy of her speech on the table of the house.
It was subsequently held by justice B N Banerjee of the Calcutta High Court in Abdul Gafoor Habibullah case (1966) that governor cannot decline to deliver his address and refuse to fulfill his constitutional duty. Thus, it can not be questioned under Article 212, wherein the validity of the House proceedings cannot be challenged on the ground of merely irregularity in the procedure.
A later governor of West Bengal, Dharma Vira, too had skipped certain portions of the speech sent to him by the government, particularly the portion dealing with his dismissal of the first United Front Government in Bengal. The Calcutta High Court had by then upheld the Governor’s decision and termed the dismissal as constitutional. Dharma Vira insisted he cannot speak about the office of Governor in a derogatory manner.
The Calcutta HC held the governor has the right to delete or not read irrelevant portions or portion which do not deal with the policy of the government. The Court observed that “the Governor can exercise his discretion in leaving out of his address the irrelevant matter. The address is meant to guide the legislature in respect of the legislative programme to be taken up by the government. He may cut down the irrelevant issues, which have nothing to do with the policy and the programmes of the state legislature and which may be calculated to mislead the legislature itself”. (IPA Service)
