SUBJECT: POLITICAL SCIENCE IV

TEACHER: MS. DEEPIKA GAHATRAJ

MODULE: VII, CENTRE-STATE RELATIONSHIP

The role and position of the Governor in relation to the Centre can be described as a
particular phase of Centre-State relation. When India became independent the immediate
need was to achieve unity in its inherent diversity. Therefore, "the Founding Fathers,
responded through a Federal structurisation of the government in the country, which because
of the compulsions of history and tradition had to be Centre oriented”. This led some
constitutional writers to remark that "India is a unitary State with subsidiary federal features
rather than a federal State with subsidiary unitary feature."
Whatever be the nature of working the federal structure, the fact remains that the existence
in any federal system of two levels of government makes conflict of some kind at some time
inevitable. "Even if each government is unmotivated by a desire to extend its authority,
instances arise where the action of one may impinge upon the competence of the other''.
Indian political scene amply bears witness to this fact. The first twenty years of the working
of the working of the federal apparatus did not throw up many problems because of the
supremacy of the Congress party at the Centre and also in the States. After 1967, with the
introduction of coalition governments in different States, problems began to surface. The
problems are not only alive today but have assumed serious proportions, occasionally
threatening the strength of the national fibre. Judiciary can play a role in resolving
occasional legal conflicts, but is not expected to run the federal process in day to day
functioning. Politically oriented problems are not possible to be solved by the judiciary.
Consequently, the Governor remains to be the only functioning who can play a definite role
in the best management of the federal process, as he only occupies the position of a key
stone in the arch of federal structure. He occupies a position which, if properly exercised, in
right constitutional perspective, may transform confrontation between the Union and State
governments into cooperation. This leads to the question as to what is the true position of
the office of the Governor within our constitutional structurisation and how a Governor has
to discharge his functions to win the confidence of both the Governments.
Is the Governor a link between the Centre and the State ? Is he a representative of the
Centre in the State ? These questions have not received an authoritative inter pretation so
far.
In the Constituent Assembly, conflicting stands were taken. Advocating the
appointment of a Governor by the President, Nehru remarked that he had come to favour

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nominated Governors partly because it would keep the Centre in touch with the units and
would remove a source of possible separatist tendencies. There were many speakers who
explained that”the Governor is the agent rather he is the agency which will press for the and
guard the Central policy."
It has been rightly said "that the office of the Governor is not meant to be an
ornamental sinecure, that the holder of this office is not required to be an inert cypher and
that his character, calibre and experience must be of an order that enables him to discharge
with skill and detachment his dual responsibility towards the Centre and towards the State
executive, of which he is the constitutional Head.This duality in his role is perhaps its most
important and certainly its most unusual feature. It would be wrong to emphasiseone aspect
of the character of his role at the expense of the other and the successful discharge of his
role depends on correctly interpreting the scope and limits of both.” The importance of the
Governor’s duties as a representative of the Centre invests him "with a significance for
national integration and for the preservation of national standards in public administration
that has not received enough recognition so far”
Some of the elder statesmen who have served the office of the Governor, are of the
view that the Governor of the State is an important functionary between the State and the
Centre. Shri V.V. Giri, the former Governor of Mysore and the President of India, called
himself an ’Ambassador of the Central Government to the State administration.
Similarly, Shri G.N. Singh, the former Governor of Rajasthan also held the view that the
Governor in several cases acts as " a link with the Centre”. Similar Shri Prakasa was the first
Governor to call himself an "agent of the Centre".
The necessity to understand the constitutional status of the Governor arises from the
circumstances that the Governors are often called agents of the Centre acting at their behest
either in the formation of the Ministry or the dissolution of the Ministry or promulgation of
the President's rule. Some of the contradictory postures taken by Governors in the past in
relation to the above subjects under identical situation have generated an atmosphere of
suspicion and criticised by the public.
Thus the Centre-State conflicts largely turn upon the actions of the Governor. Every
State which is ruled by a Party other than that in power at the Centre attributes political
motives to the Governor's actions and suggests that they are dictated by the Union
Government. Several jurists have pointed out that "there is absolutely nothing in the
Constitution to make the Governor of a State an agent of the Central Government. The
relations between the Union and the States have been described and dealt within detail in
part XI of the Constitution and there is no justification whatever to travel beyond the
provisions contained therein and to make the Governor an agent of the Central Government.
A Governor both by virtue of his office as contemplated by the Constitution and by virtue of
the oath he takes, has to function as the Head of the particular State, exercising those powers
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and discharging those functions which are attached to his office. In the context of the federal
structure of the Indian Constitution and with the possibility of the Party in power at the
Centre being different from the Party in power in a particular State, to leave the appointment
of a Governor to the Central Government and make him an agent of that Central
Government, holding his office during the pleasure of the Central Government, will be
completely subversive and totally destructive of the federal frame work of the Indian
Constitution and the autonomy of States contemplated th-erein.

REFERENCE:
https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/188702/14/14_chapter%209.pdf