OPINION: CM can approach President for disciplining Governor, says PDT Achary

Therefore, it is the Governor’s Constitutional duty to inform the members of the Assembly about what the government has decided to do in the coming year. If the Governor does not read the speech, that means he has not informed the members. Informing the members is his Constitutional duty, which he has refused to perform.

If this happens due to illness or whatever, then we can understand it. Here, it is not so. It is a wilful kind of defiance or violation of the Constitutional provision. That is what has happened.

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Governor’s address

And then, we must know that a Governor is not personally responsible for anything that is said in the address. For, this is an address which is prepared by the government and is given to the Governor.

Of course, he will first authenticate it. Only after that can it be circulated among the members. So, it is the elected government which is actually responsible for everything that is said in the address. The Governor is not responsible at all.

But why has the Governor been given this responsibility to inform the House?

That is because the Constitution has given a higher status to the Assembly, the highest representative body of the people in the state. Otherwise, the chief minister could have informed the House about what his government was going to do during the year.

However, that is not provided for in the Constitution. The Constitution provides that the Governor shall inform the House and its members about the purpose of this session. That shows the importance that is being given to the Assembly by the Constitution.

The second thing is the Governor has to authenticate the address. And only after that can it be circulated among the members. Once the Governor has authenticated it, how can you raise Constitutional objections to the address? That is something very illogical.

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‘Happens only in the non-BJP-ruled states’

I think these Constitutional irregularities are committed for a purpose or with a certain objective. Otherwise, why do that? Does it happen in any other state? It happens only in the non-BJP-ruled states. It only shows that the Governors are acting in this way deliberately.

It is very difficult (to bell this cat), I am telling you. There are two ways in which this kind of situation can be dealt with. One is to go to the Supreme Court and get an order about how the Governors should act in such situations.

The other thing is that the chief minister should bring it to the notice of the President of India because the President is the appointing authority of the Governors.

Then, there is Article 355. Although the purpose of Article 355 is slightly different, in the sense that it shows it is the Union government’s duty to protect it from external aggression, disturbances and all that, it is also the duty of the Union government to ensure that the governance in a state is carried on in accordance with the Constitution.

In many states, governance is impossible because of certain things the Governors are doing.

Therefore, I feel that Article 355 should be invoked, and the chief minister should point out to the President that there is a Governor who is actually coming in the way of the government acting according to the Constitution.

That means we can’t carry on with governance by the Constitution because of certain actions or activities of the Governor.

I think the chief minister is well within his right to point it out to the President and seek his intervention to discipline the Governor and give directions to the Governor.

If the Governor is the cause of the breakdown of the Constitutional machinery, then naturally, the Governor will have to be disciplined. It can be done by the President.