The Hindu : Opinion / Editorials : MESSING UP ALL ROUND

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Monday, Nov 01, 2004

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MESSING UP ALL ROUND

THE BREACH OF propriety indisputably involved in Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's making public, through an extraordinary application in the Supreme Court, the transcript of a privileged conversation with the Union Home Minister has overshadowed the institutional issues involved in the appointment, transfer, and removal of Governors. If Tehelka-type exposés of dealings between constitutional authorities are allowable, then normal official interaction in cases where there is mutual suspicion will become a farce. But Ms. Jayalalithaa's question to Shivraj Patil, "Are you consulting me or are you informing me?", and his reply, "I am informing you," do address a key issue in federal relations. It highlights the fact that the institution of Governor has a benighted history in India.

The flaw is in the Constitution's quasi-federal scheme itself: it makes the Governor the agent of the Centre, an agent who can, if the Centre wishes, be used to thwart the political will of a State. When the basic law was being drafted, there were suggestions to the effect that the Chief Minister or legislature could recommend a panel of names for the post of Governor of a State and the President could appoint one of them. Unfortunately, the Constitution failed to make such a prescription. Subsequently, the Administrative Reforms Commission and the Sarkaria Commission recommended that consultation with the Chief Minister before appointing a Governor would be good practice (with the latter proposing a suitable amendment to Article 155 to give constitutional sanction to it). Unfortunately, with successive Central Governments unwilling to do away with the political agency of the Governor, `consultation' has been treated mostly as a non-serious option — not a convention with any binding force. Mr. Patil's public clarification that the recommendations of various commissions "do not become binding on us when they are not incorporated into law" is a wooden and unsubtle rationalisation of bad practice.

The past 54 years have seen outstanding as well as appalling Governors, sagacious and just as well as partisan and manipulative heads of States. Just as the Congress had done before, the Bharatiya Janata Party made a number of blatantly partisan gubernatorial appointments between 1998 and 2004. It is no surprise that the United Progressive Alliance Government headed by the Congress has moved, fairly quickly, to replace Governors with a known or suspected Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh connection, or otherwise judged to be unsuitable, with its own political nominees. In the case of Tamil Nadu, everything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong. There is no doubt that the Centre, and in particular Mr. Patil, have messed up. Mr. Patil should have consulted the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister in cooperative federal spirit. Governor P.S. Ramamohan Rao, on his part, should have taken his cue from the public speculation on the Centre's move to replace him and, if that was not enough, from the two meetings he had with the Union Home Minister, and tendered his resignation — instead of waiting to be forced out. The Chief Minister could have taken up the federal issue persuasively with the Centre and rallied support from fellow Chief Ministers — instead of being pushed on the defensive for committing a breach of propriety. Of the various constitutional institutions only the apex court did well, by declining to intervene in a matter that needed to be settled elsewhere. Surjit Singh Barnala comes back to Tamil Nadu with a reputation for objectivity and fair play; after all, in 1990, he became the one Governor in Indian political history who refused to take part in constitutional fraud through use of the knife of Article 356. While, as the Constitution stands, the Centre will continue to have a free hand in appointing, transferring, and removing heads of States, it is about time healthy conventions were followed in letter and spirit to facilitate decent and cooperative Centre-State relations.

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