SUBJECT: POLITICAL SCIENCE IV

TEACHER: MS. DEEPIKA GAHATRAJ

MODULE: VII, CENTRE-STATE RELATIONSHIP
TENSION AREAS IN CENTRE-STATE RELATIONS (Part 4)

(d) Suspension and Dissolution of the Assembly

The Governor is empowered to dissolve the Assembly, which is another controversial area
of his discretionary powers, to ensure the administration of state in accordance with the
constitutional provisions. If the Ministry enjoys a majority and yet demands dissolution,
there is no alternative but to order dissolution. Similarly, the Governor can order dissolution,
under article 356, if the Ministry resigns without passing the budget. But if the suggestion of
dissolution comes from a Ministry that has lost its majority and is afraid of the opposition
taking over, the Governor can refuse. In this case, it is his duty to summon the house and try
to find an alternative in the assembly. In his discretion, he can refuse to accept the advice of
dissolution.
Generally, the Governor is supposed to be guided by the advice of Council of Ministers.
Instances of both acceptance and rejection of the ministerial advice for dissolution of
assembly are not lacking. The debatable cases in this regard in recent years appear to be
those of Punjab, Nagaland and Uttar Pradesh and latest being the dissolution of Bihar
Assembly in May 2005, where the then Governor spoke of the likelihood of Nitish Kumar
staking claim to form government as the real justification for his recommending the
dissolution. In fact, it is not obligatory on the part of the Governor to agree to the advice of
a defeated Ministry to dissolve the Legislative Assembly. Nor has there emerged any
uniform practice in this respect. Moreover, there is no clear constitutional directive, to deal
with a situation obtaining from the defeat of the Ministry.
On several occasions, the power of declaring failure of constitutional machinery has been
misused by suspending or dissolving the assemblies keeping in view the interests of the
ruling party at the centre. Whenever the ruling party at the centre felt that it would be in a
position to form alternative Ministry either by maneuvering defections or otherwise, the
Assemblies were suspended, otherwise they were dissolved.

(e) Suspension of the Assemblies for resolving intra-party conflict

The factional strife has been one of the characteristics of the Congress party and whenever
the factional fight crossed the reasonable limits of the party discipline, the Congress
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government at the centre suspended the assembly in order to resolve those conflicts. This
was done in Punjab in 1951, 1956 and again in 1983, in Andhra Pradesh in 1973, in U.P and
Odisha in 1975.
The Assemblies have also been suspended in order to conceal the inefficiency, corruption
and mal-administration of the Congress party in power at the state level. This was done in
U.P in 1973 and in Gujarat in 1974. This, example has again been repeated in Punjab n
1983.
It is evident from the above context that the office of Governor has come in for serious
criticism, particularly as regards the discretionary powers causing heavy strain on
federalism since long. Quite a few have shown disregard for the norms of parliamentary
democracy and constitutional niceties. But a close scrutiny of all the instances of exercise of
Governor’s power’s in the past would reveal that the Governor’s have not exactly used their
discretion in the true sense of the term as the framers of the constitution thought.

(f) Reserving Bills for Presidential Assent

Another area of concern between the union and states is the reservation of bills by the
Governors for the assent of the President of India. Under the Articles of 200 and 201 of the
constitution, the Governor is empowered to give his assent to a bill or withhold it or to
reserve it for consideration of the President. This way the centre exercises enough leverage
by procuring, through the Governors the bills passed by state assemblies and adopts
delaying tactics with respect to opposition led state governments. These governments have a
point in accusing the centre of misusing the office of Governor to subvert the mandate they
have received from electorate to pursue welfare programmes for them. In fact, the states do
not enjoy full legislative freedom even in the matters mentioned in the state list.

(g) Controversy over Governor’s Address

According to Article 175 (1), the Governor can address either house of the state legislature
separately or both the houses assembled. He also delivers the special address at the
commencement of the first session after each General Election to the legislative assembly
and at the commencement of the first session of the year and an inaugural address at the
budget session. The address, whenever delivered, is prepared by the Chief Minster and his
Council of Ministers. The address must not refer to the High Court and should be in
accordance with the oath that the Govenor takes under Article 159. In all cases, it is a
written speech and he merely intones the words of the Ministry.
The important question in this regard is that can he delete an objectionable part from this
address. There is no unanimity of practice whether the Governor of a state must read out the
address given to him by the Ministry. In the case of West Bengal, Governor Dharma Vira
refused to read out some portions in March 1969 from the address given to him by the
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United Front government that were derogatory to him and the central government. The
result was that the state assembly adopted only a conditional motion of thanks. The motion
included a highly critical expression that the Governor had unlawfully omitted that part of
the speech, approved by the Council of Ministers, which referred to the unwarranted and
unconstitutional dismissal of the United Front Ministry formed after the Fourth General
Elections.
Unlike Dharma Vira, Dr. D.C. Pavate, Governor of Punjab, in his address to the assembly in
March 1969, commented that after the fall of the United Front Ministry headed by Gurunam
Singh in November 1967, fundamental rights were violated and trampled upon in Punjab.
He also said that the budget session of the assembly in March 1968 constituted an
unfortunate Chapter in the history of democracy in the country as the police was brought
into the Punjab assembly and constitutional rights and practices were gravely violated at the
time of the passing of the budget. While in the former case, the Governor skipped some
portion of the address, in the latter case, the Governor added his personal feelings to the
address.
Some constitutional experts like Ashoka Sen and M. C. Setalvad held the view that “he can
avoid reading certain lines or paragraphs when these lines or paragraphs condemn the
Govenor for his earlier actions (it would be as if the Governor was delivering a verdict
against his own self) and it is not within the limits of constitutional propriety.”

REFERENCES:
https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/84660/12/12_chapter%204.pdf