AA Edit | In Tamil Nadu & elsewhere, governors can't block governments

Article 159 of the Constitution prescribes the oath a person takes as he/she enters the office of governor. It states that the person will, to the best of their ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and the law, and will devote themselves to the service and well-being of the people of the state.

In his letter to President Droupadi Murmu, Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin has listed a series of acts of governor R.N. Ravi suggesting that they went against the oath he has taken, and has asked the President to decide if he should continue in office.

One of the allegations of Mr Stalin is that the governor holds up bills passed by the state Assembly. Mr Ravi has not only taken an inordinate time to respond to these, but is also on record saying that if they were withheld they were as “good as dead”. Such a position undermines the legitimacy of the elected legislature as well as the Supreme Court’s opinion that governors cannot sit indefinitely on bills.

Mr Stalin has also listed instances wherein the governor’s statements referring to the Tamil language, Dravidian philosophy and cultural practices were objected to. The critics also included parties and social organisations not affiliated to the DMK. Mr Stalin flagged an instance when the governor sought to interfere with a police investigation. Mr Ravi has even denigrated government attempts to attract investments to the state.

All this is in addition to the governor’s order dismissing a minister without the aid and advice of the council of ministers while he was being investigated by a Central agency, the Enforcement Directorate. Meanwhile, it has been countless months since the CBI, which is another Central agency, submitted its file on a former minister from the previous government and the governor is yet to clear the same. This points to partisan conduct by the constitutional head of the state, according to the CM.

Several states ruled by political parties opposed to the National Democratic Alliance have been witnessing clashes between their governors and the chief ministers and the points vary from administrative formalities, governance of universities to serious constitutional issues. But Tamil Nadu has witnessed gubernatorial excess in an unprecedented way when Mr Ravi disregarded Mr Stalin’s opinion on the continuance of a minister in the state Cabinet. That it took a midnight intervention by the Union home ministry to stop him from speeding along an unconstitutional track is a telling testimony on the current circumstances.

The President, in the constitutional scheme of things, acts on the aid and advice of the Union council of ministers headed by the Prime Minister and cannot act on her own. However, she is very much part of the system of checks and balances that our constitutional makers have instituted so that misadventures by centres of power can be controlled. It is time she exercised that moral power. Allowing serious constitutional improprieties to linger does no good to anyone.