TN panel proposes fixed-term, state-led governor appointments
CHENNAI: The high-level committee constituted by the Tamil Nadu government and led by retired Justice Kurien Joseph has recommended a fixed five-year term, state-led appointments, and binding timelines for assenting to Bills for the governor of states.
According to the first part of the three-member panel’s report, tabled in the Assembly on Wednesday and accessed by TNIE, the panel has recommended that Article 155 of the Constitution be amended to bind the President to appoint, as governor, one of three names shortlisted by the state and approved by a majority of the total membership of the state’s Legislative Assembly.
The panel also recommended the scrapping of the “pleasure” doctrine under Article 156. This allows the union government to remove governors at will. Instead, the panel has recommended that a non-renewable five-year term be fixed for the governor.
“A governor cannot be neutral, impartial, or constitutionally effective while remaining vulnerable to dismissal at the will of the union executive,” the panel said in its report. The report suggests that the governor only be removed by the Assembly upon a resolution passed by a majority of the House’s total membership, with the president bound to act within 14 days.
The report also says that timelines must be set for governors and the president to assent to Bills.
Report flags issues in process to amend constitution under Art 368
Accordingly, if the governor or President does not act on a Bill within the stipulated timelines — 15 days to assent or return, 60 days to reserve for presidential consideration — it should automatically become law. “No executive authority -- governor or President -- should withhold assent to a Bill duly passed by a state legislature,” the report read.
Pointing to how the governor’s office has been misused to unseat elected governments in various states, the committee recommended a new “instrument of instructions” by inserting a 13th Schedule in the constitution to codify the governor’s discretionary powers in inviting parties to form a government or to dissolve Assembly. The report also contended that process to amend the constitution under Article 368 is too flexible, allowing a simple majority in Parliament to push through changes with “potentially devastating consequences for the federal structure”. It pointed to the passage of the 42nd Amendment (1976) to the constitution when most opposition MPs were under detention during the Emergency as proof of how easily the constitution can be rewritten.
As a remedy, the committee proposed that all constitutional amendments must be passed by a two-thirds majority of the total membership of each House of Parliament, not just those present and voting.
As the state’s right to initiate, the committee also suggested that if two-thirds of the state legislatures pass a resolution to initiate constitutional amendments, Parliament would be compelled to consider it. Further, the report recommended codifying the “basic structure” doctrine -- a list of unamendable features including federalism, democracy, and secularism -- directly into Article 368. Similarly, on the education front, it called for the subject to be moved back to the State List.