Need for institutional framework for appointing governors

New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government - like any other new dispensation - is offloading the bureaucrats who had served under the Congress led UPA-II and has reportedly asked some governors and other political appointees occupying constitutional positions to step down. After all political retribution is integral to real politic.Soon after the governors were removed, a PIL was moved in the Supreme Court which was heard by the constitution bench.The five-judge bench on May 7, 2010 said that a with the change of gvernment at the Centre a Governor could not be removed merely because he is not on the same political or ideological page as that of the government. ""If the Union Government does not disclose any reason, or if the reasons disclosed are found to be irrelevant, arbitrary, whimsical, or malafide, the court will interfere", the constitution bench had said.It is this pronouncement that is coming in the way of the Modi government doing what Manmohan Singh's government did. The first hurdle that the new government faces is that it can't remove the UPA appointed governors merely because they don't share the political or ideological colours of the Modi government or the BJP.The second is that government will have to persuade President Pranab Mukherjee that its reasons for seeking the withdrawal of pleasure was not "irrelevant, arbitrary, whimsical, or malafide" - an uphill task as Mukharjee is prone to take an independent call.The question of a governor was also considered by Justice R.S.Sarkaria that went into Union-States relations. Venkatachaliah that went into the working of Indian constitution recommended its amendment so that a governor's appointment should be entrusted to a committee comprising the prime minister, the home minister, the speaker of the Lok Sabha and the chief minister of the concerned state.Favouring a fixed tern for the governor, the Commission recommended the deletion of Article 165 that says that the Governor holds office "during the pleasure of the president".As usual, political exigencies weighed upon the recommendations that would have gone a long way in strengthening the institution of governor,Our political class has often demonstrated that it has no qualms in allowing their immediate interests from overshadowing the democratic institutions - so vitial for the democratic functioning of the state.Thus, it may be necessary to once again visit the recommendations of the JusticeSarkaria report and the Justice Venkatachaliah report so that there could be an institutional framework for the appointment of a governor with a fixed tenure.