Raj Bhavans - Parallel Power Centers

 

Raj Bhavans - Parallel Power Centers

A Governor of an Indian State, before entering upon his office, is required to take the oath that he will faithfully execute the office of Governor and will to the best of his ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and the law and that he will devote himself to the service and well-being of the people of his state. Like the President, who is a Titular Head of the Indian State, the Governor is a Titular Head of a State in the Union of India.  And just as  the Prime Minister, Head of the Union Government, is free to discharge his duties towards the country, the Chief Minister, Head of a State government, should have a free hand to run his state, both of them being elected represent the will of the nation and a State respectively.

 

The Article 163 of the Constitution provides for a Council of Ministers with the Chief Minister as the head to aid and advise the Governor in the exercise of his functions. Whie discharging his functions, the Governor cannot exercise “his discretion” arbitrarily, independent of the advice given by the Council of Ministers. As per the Article 200, when a Bill is passed by a State Legislature and presented to the Governor, “the Governor shall declare either that he assents to the Bill or that he withholds assent therefrom or that he reserves the Bill for consideration of the President.”   

 

The Constitutional provision is unambiguous: “the Governor may, as soon as possible after the presentation to him of the Bill for assent, return the Bill ,if it is not a Money Bill, together with a message requesting that the House or Houses(Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council) will reconsidered the Bill or any specified provisions thereof and, in particular, will consider the desirability of introducing any such amendments as he may recommend in his message and, when a Bill is so returned, the Houser or Houses shall reconsider the Bill accordingly, and if the Bill is passed again by the House or Houses with or without amendment and presented to the Governor for assent, the Governor shall not withhold assent therefrom.”

 

Interestingly, even when a Bill is reserved for consideration of the President, the Article 201 is clear as to the course of action to be adopted by the President. The Article reads: “When a Bill Is reserved by a Governor for the consideration of the President, the President shall declare either that he assents to the Bill or that he withholds assent therefrom: provided that, where the Bill is not a Money Bill, the President may direct the Governor to return the Bill to the House or, as the case may be, the Houses of the Legislature of the State together with such a message as it mentioned in the first proviso  to Article 200 and, when a Bill is so returned, the House or Houses shall reconsider it accordingly within a period of six months from the date of receipt of such message and, if it is again passed by the House or Houses with or without amendment, it shall be presented again to the President for his consideration.”

 

The Constitution does not empower either the Governor or the President to sit on the Bills indefinitely. Despite these explicit constitutional provisions, the Governors in the non-BJP ruled states, have become a law unto themselves. Earlier, the state governments used to be dismissed to impose President rule by arbitrarily invoking the Article 356 of the Constitution by the ruling parties at the Centre – be it the Congress or the Janata Party. However, since 2014, with the advent of the Modi government, a new phenomenon has developed. The elected non-BJP state governments are toppled by inducing defections, and the governor’s position is abused to subvert the rule of law.

 

Of late, the Governors in the non-BJP states, doing the bidding for the ruling party at the Centre, have become extra-constitutional authorities, exercising parallel power, paralyzing the popularly elected non-BJP state governments. The Governors and the Chief Ministers in non-BJP states, such as Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Kerala, Punjab, Karnataka, Telangana and Jharkhand are on a constant war path, the Governors simply refusing the co-operate with the states in running the governments smoothly, failing to work for the welfare of the people of the state. The governors are playing a very partisan role, ignoring their constitutional obligations.

 

It is in this context that we should welcome the historical judgment of the Supreme Court of India delivered on 8 April, 2025, by the bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and R.Mahadevan, in the case of The State of Tamil Nadu Vs The Governor of Tamil Nadu.  The apex court has ruled that sitting on the Bills indefinity, exercising a sort of absolute power or ‘pocket veto”, by the Governor is illegal, unconstitutional and erroneous. The Court, in exercises of its inherent power under the Article 142 of the Constitution, has clipped the wings of the Governor, and set aside his action of reserving 10 Bills re-passed by the Tamil Nadu Assembly for the consideration of the President.

 

The Court declared that “having regard to the undo long time for which these Bills were kept pending…before the ultimate declaration of withholding of assent, and in view of the scant respect shown by the governor to the decision of this court in State of Punjab case(2023)… we are left with no choice but to exercise our inherent powers under the Article 142 of the Constitution to declare these 10 Bills to have deemed to have got assented.” The Bills are deemed to have assented from the day they were re-passed by the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly in 2023. The Supreme Court operationalising the Bills, which were blocked by the Tamil Nadu governor, is a 'slap on the face of the Modi government'. 

This is a unique judgment- first of its kind in 75 years history of the Indian Republic. It is also, in a way, declaring the action of President Draupadi Murmu – who assented to only one of the Bills, rejecting seven, and not considering two others – to be void. The Governor, the Union government and the President must be held accountable for the failure to act as per the provisions of the constitution mentioned above.

 

The reasoning given by the Court for passing such a landmark judgment is interesting.  A Governor cannot exercise his personal discretion if a House passed the same Bill again and returned it to him for consent. The Tamil Nadu Assembly had re-passed the 10 Bills in a special session held on November 18,2023, without making any amendments, and returned them to the Governor for his consent again.  Governor R.N. Ravi, this time, had sat on the re-passed Bills indefinitely, only to reserve them for the consideration of the President on November 28,2023 after the State approached the Supreme Court. The Court declared that the Governor’s conduct was arbitrary, non-est and erroneous in law.  

 

The Governor had no business to refuse the assent when the Bills were returned to him. He sent the Bills to the President only after the Supreme Court’s verdict in the case of State of Punjab against the Governor in 2023 as an after-thought. If he wanted to reserve the Bills for the President, he should have done so when they were presented to him the first time. The Bills cannot be sent to the President once they are reconsidered and returned to the Governor. This action of the Governor was wilful and served as a stumbling block, as “it is not open for the governor to reserve a bill for the President after it has been re-presented by government after being passed again by the Assembly.” The head of a state should be guided by the values of the Constitution and not by political expediency.

 

Further, the Court observed that the “governor must act with due deference to the settled conventions of parliamentary democracy, respecting the will of the people expressed through the legislature as well as the elected government responsible to the people.  He must perform his role of a friend, philosopher and guide, with dispassion, guided by the sanctity of the constitutional oath he undertook. And in times of conflict, he must be the harbinger of consensus and resolution, lubricating the functioning of the state machinery by his sagacity and wisdom and not bring it to a standstill; he must be the catalyst, and not the inhibitor. All his actions must be held keeping in mind the dignity of the high constitutional office that he occupies.” Justice Pardiwala, who wrote the judgement, has made a pertinent observation: “the governor must not create roadblocks or prevent state legislature from passing law for political ends. Constitutional authorities occupying high offices must not give into ephemeral political considerations but rather be guided by the spirit that underlies the Constitution.”

 

The verdict reinforces the basic democratic principle that the will of the people, as expressed through the legislature and elected government, must be respected and the governor of a state, who is aligned to the political ideology of the ruling party at the Centre, should not play partisan politics, and instead act as an impartial umpire, upholding the constitutional morality. At a time when a dismal pattern has emerged in non-BJP-ruled states, of tussle between the governor and government, the verdict has come as a great relief to all the states. It now sets the timeline of one-to-three months for giving assent to a Bill by Governor.  And if the Bill is re-passed and presented to the Governor, he must give assent within a month.  The power of governors across states to delay inconvenient bills indefinitely is now limited. 

 

The Court held that the action of the Governor which impedes the will of the people reneges the constitutional oath of office. And that the Governor is obliged to accord primacy to the will and welfare of the people of the state and earnestly work in harmony with the state machinery and that he must be conscious to not create roadblocks or chokehold the state legislature in order to thwart and break the will of the people for political ends.

 

And the Governor is not a viceroy or an agent of the Centre, but a constitutional figurehead bound by the advice of the elected state government. It is a clear red light against politically motivated actions. Tamil Nadu has shown the way of relentlessly fighting against the arbitrary actions of a politically aligned Governor.  A DMK leader R. Bharathi, reacting to the verdict, thundered: “If Governor Ravi has any self-respect, he should leave Raj Bhavan tonight.” No Governor had ever faced such a sharp judicial rebuke. It is not just a victory for Tamil Nadu, but a victory for all states. M.K. Stalin said in the State Assembly: “Tamil Nadu struggled to protect the DMK’s principles, such as state autonomy and federalism. Tamil Nadu will struggle, Tamil Nadu will win.” A DMK Minister Duraimurugan recalled how the Assembly discussed the Rajamannar Committee report on state autonomy when Karunanidhi was the Chief Minister in 1974. He said, like ancient Chola emperor Rajendra Chola and Pallava emperor Narsimha Varman I, Stalin did his father proud. 

The story of Governor Ravi is the story of the governors of all non-BJP ruled states converting Raj Bhavans into parallel power centers. The people who mortgage their integrity came to occupy the high constitutional office of the governor and brought disgrace to the office they hold. Pandit Nehru favoured the appointment of eminent academicians from outside politics and other outstanding and impartial people from other walks of life as governors.