9/10/2014 Outlook News

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Practice of Dismissing Governors Started in 1977
NEW DELHI | MAY 07, 2010
The practice of dismissing Governors with the change of guard at the Centre began in 1977 when the Janata Party came to power routing the Congress and
took a decision to replace the Governors appointed by the previous regime.
That was the first time a non-Congress Government was in power. Subsequent governments, whether that of Congress or others, then made it a practice.
In October 1980, then Tamil Nadu Governor Prabhudas Patwari was dismissed, demonstrating that the President's "pleasure" under Article 156 (1) can be
used by the Prime Minister to dismiss any Governor for political reasons, and without assigning any cause.
In 1981, then Rajasthan Governor Raghulal Tilak too was dismissed from office.
When Tilak was removed from office, the state High Court held that Presidential pleasure contemplated in Article 156 was "not justiciable".
Incidentally, the decision of the Morarji Desai Cabinet in 1977 to replace the Governors was sent back without signing by then acting President B D Jatti.
The Cabinet sent the proposal a second time to the President who signed it as per constitutional norms.
The United Progressive Alliance government had dismissed four Governors -- Kidar Nath Sahni (Goa), Kailashpati Mishra (Gujarat), Babu Parmanand
(Haryana) and Vishnu Kant Shastri (Uttar Pradesh), who had been appointed during the tenure of the previous National Democratic Alliance government.
Though the UPA in 2004 did not specify any reason, it was felt that there were a combination of more than one reasons for the removal of Governors.
Government sources then said the sacked Governors were political appointees who had been sent to their respective states with a specific purpose and that
they made no effort to hide their RSS-BJP background when in office.
The Congress said the four Governors were sacked not because they belonged to a particular party but because they were "for a long time associated with
the Sangh Parivar".
One of the four sacked Governors, Parmanand, was reported to have made an appeal to an audience in Rewari to vote for A B Vajpayee in the run-up to the
election.
Interestingly, the UPA did not touch other NDA appointees like T N Chaturvedi (Karnataka), Madan Lal Khurana (Rajasthan) and M Rama Jois (Jharkhand).
Earlier in December 1989, the then President, on the advice of the National Front government led by V P Singh, had asked all the Governors to resign simply
because another party had come to power at the Centre.
Nine years later, when the BJP came to power it was reported that then Union Home Secretary B P Singh asked three Governors -- of Gujarat, Goa and
Mizoram -- to put in their papers.
Disapproving the practice of replacing Governors after a new government comes to power at the Centre, the Supreme Court today said that the Governors of
states cannot be changed in an arbitrary and capricious manner with the change of power.
The landmark decision came on a PIL filed in 2004 by then BJP MP B P Singhal challenging the removal of Governors by the previous UPA government.
A Commission headed by Justice Rajinder Singh Sarkaria, which went into Centre-State relations, had said Governors should not be appointed without
consulting the states they were being sent to.
It also suggested that "persons who have not taken too great a part in politics generally and particularly in the recent past" should not be appointed
Governors.
The Constitution Review Panel headed by former Chief Justice M N Venkatachalliah supported Justice Sarkaria's recommendations.
Article 156 does not lay down the grounds upon which a Governor may be removed by the President, nor does it require that the reasons be disclosed.
It is assumed that the President shall use the power to meet with cases of gross delinquency such as bribery, corruption, treason and the like, or conduct
unbecoming of the high office, or violative of the Constitution.
The normal tenure of a Governor's office is five years, but it may be terminated earlier by dismissal by the President, at whose "pleasure" he holds the office
or by resignation of the Governor.
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