Raj Bhavan in year 2005: Oh, what a fall it has been
By Soli Sorabjee

The framers of our Constitution believed that the Governor as a ‘sagacious counsellor’ had a crucial role to play for the proper functioning of the federation and maintenance of healthy Centre-State relations and that by the imprint of his personality can impart the right moral tone to the administration of the State. Veteran B.G. Kher disagreed with the view that the Governor is a mere figurehead. He said, ‘‘A Governor can do a great deal of good if he is a good Governor. Similarly he can do a great deal of mischief.’’ Experience demonstrates that the mischief done by most governors has far outdone the good work of a few.

The qualifications for appointment of a Governor under the Constitution are that the person should be a citizen of India and 35 years of age. However, our founding fathers attached great importance to the background and calibre of the person to be appointed as Governor. Alladi’s view was that Governor should be a person of ‘‘undoubted ability and position in public life who, at the same time, has not been mixed up in provincial party struggle and factions.’’ Munshi thought a Governor ‘‘should be free from the passions and jealousies of local party politics.’’ T.T. Krishnamachari was keen that the Governor should be ‘‘a person who will hold the scales impartially as between the various factions in the politics of the State.’’ Nehru preferred persons like eminent educationists or eminent in other walks of life, ‘‘who have not taken too great a part in politics.’’

These criteria were not expressly incorporated in the Constitution. Why? Because the undoubted integrity of persons then in Government and the high prevailing standards of public and constitutional morality led our founding fathers to expect that conventions on these lines would evolve and be observed. These expectations have been crudely shattered. Rare exceptions apart, burnt-out and disgruntled politicians who could not be accommodated elsewhere, got appointed. Worse, persons who had to resign from office as a minister following judicial strictures have been subsequently appointed as governors. Ram Lal’s appointment as governor of Andhra Pradesh is a glaring instance. Surveying the scene one can only bemoan and sigh with the poet: Whither is fled the visionary gleam?

Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

The Governors’ role in imposition of President’s rule has been notoriously partisan. Their reports are tailor-made to advance the political aims and machinations of the Centre. The Supreme Court in the case of President’s rule imposed in Nagaland, in Karnataka and in Meghalaya ruled that the Governors’ reports on whose basis President’s Rule was imposed as tainted with malafides and declared the dissolution of the assemblies of those States as unconstitutional. The recent instances of misuse of the Governor’s office as exemplified by the Governors of Goa, Jharkhand and Bihar—the unholy trinity—would make even the angels weep.

It is regrettable that some people or parties refuse to follow the Constitutional path and hope to get away with it. That can only be a fond hope so long as we have an independent judiciary sensitive to constitutional values, as the recent order of the Supreme Court in the Bihar Assembly dissolution case testifies.

There is a serious constitutional lacunae which affects a Governor’s independent functioning. The Governor who is appointed by the Centre can be removed without notice, without reasons and without any hearing at the Union Government’s pleasure. The Governor does not have the elementary safeguards against his removal ensured even to a class IV employee. In these circumstances the Governor, human nature being what it is, will tend to act at the behest of the Centre and toe its line.

Dr. Ambedkar’s reply suggested that conventions would evolve in the matter of the Governor’s removal and that it was necessarily implied that the Governor would be removed only for serious acts like violation of the Constitution or grave misbehaviour.

Shiban Lal Saxena in the Constituent Assembly was apprehensive about the absence of safeguards. He said ‘‘He (Governor) will be purely a creature of the President, that is to say, the Prime Minister and the party in power at the Centre... Such a Governor will have no independence and my point is that the Centre might try to do some mischief through that man.’’ How prophetic were his apprehensions!

A change of government at the Centre and the desire to reward partymen have in many cases led to the removal or transfer of Governors before the expiry of their term. A writ petition is pending in the Supreme Court challenging the premature removal of governors.

It would be totally unrealistic to expect evolution of conventions. It is imperative in the light of our experience that the criteria for appointment of Governors and the grounds for their removal are expressly incorporated in the Constitution.

Ultimately, the proper working of the institution of the Governor will depend upon the individual who occupies the high office. As John Stuart Mill rightly reminded us, political institutions do not ‘‘resemble trees which, once planted, ‘are ay growing,’ while men are sleeping. In every stage of their existence they are made what they are by human voluntary agency.’’