Nine new governors were appointed recently by the President of India and the list includes Droupadi Murmu, who has taken responsibility recently as a President of India; Rajasthan, Telangana, Maharashtra, Punjab, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Assam, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh. Also, Lakshman Prasad Acharya the Governor of Assam has been given the acting Governor for Manipur. They played a significant role in the state’s administration and politics, thus, gaining an understanding of what a Governor is and how he/she is appointed is pivotal to comprehend that.
Appointment of State Governors: Constitutional provisions remain one the most hotly debated topics within legal systems all over the world, hence the need to discuss valid constitutional provisions in detail. Article 153 of the Indian constitution states that there must be a Governor for Each state and an amendment in 1956 also allows the same man to be the Governor of two or more states.
The Governor is appointed by the President by a warrant under his/her hand and seal by Article 155. Therefore, Article 156 provides that the Governor is appointed by the President and can only serve five years in office although the term of office is please of appointment. In the same manner, where the President withdraws pleasure before the end of the term of the Governor, the latter must then resign. The President performs his/her functions with the help of the Prime Minister and the Union Council of Ministers; thus, the central government controls Governors.
The Igbo people have some requirements laid down as the conditions for anyone who wants to be a state governor. The provisions of articles 157 and 158 of the constitution deal with the requirements for and limitation on the holding of the Governor’s office. The Governor should possess the following qualities; the candidate must be an Indian citizen and should be at least 35 years of age. They should not be members of parliament or a state legislature and, under no circumstances, can they also hold any other paid position.
Governor-State Government Relationship
The Governor is assumed to be a non-political representative who works based on the recommendations of the Council of Ministers of the particular state. According to Article 163, the Governor works under the guidance of the Chief Minister and the Council of Ministers but there are some situations when the Governor has to work independently, when the Constitution so permits.
The Governor is vested with much authority which includes the power to assent or withhold to a Bill when it has been passed by the state legislature, to decide on how many days a party has to prove its majority in the state Assembly, to decide which party has to be called first to prove that it has the majority when the majority appears to be in doubt. These powers make the Governor’s position very important.
This friction involves governors standing against state governments that they deemed have not been friendly enough towards the federal government. Calling on Governors as agents of the central Government over the years subjected Governors to criticisms and reserved accusations that they are ruling the states in an authoritarian fashion as “agents of the Centre” especially those states that are in the opposition. There are no clear provisions that outline how two levels of public disagreement between the Governor and the state government should be resolved and this remains one of the areas that used to operate on the cardinal principle of subordination.
Recently there have been significant cases of state Governors clashing with state governments. For instance, R N Ravi currently serving as the Governor of Tamil Nadu has been accused of partisanship and bias by the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, and likewise has the Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan been accused of the same by the Kerala Chief Minister.
Reasons for Friction
Dr. Faizan Mustafa – constitutional expert on bats for the emergence of conflicts between the Governors and the governments, which has been because the Governors have been turned into political workers. Originally, the Constituent Assembly wanted the Governor to be nonpartisan while in the present day many Governors are partisans who go and stand for election.
Alok Prasanna from the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy says that even though the Governor has a responsibility to the people, he reports to the central government. This flaw in the Constitution worsens situations since no section allows for the impeachment of the Governor. On rare occasions, the central government can use Raj Bhavan to precipitate some issues in the state.
More specifically, in 2001, the governor was criticized in the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution as the governor’s appointment and continuance depended on the union council of ministers leading to suspicion that the governor would act as per central directives during disagreements.
Conclusion
The position of the Governor is quite large, and apart from the mediation between the center and the states, includes other functions. Therefore to fathom the concept of Indian governance one needs to grasp the standard provisions of the constitution along with the relations shared between the governor and the state government.
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