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T V R Shenoy

The UF's skewed appointment of governors

Does any house-owner give a caretaker a power of attorney to do what he wants? The very idea sounds ludicrous, but it is something that needs to be discussed. And we have the late United Front ministry to thank for bringing up the issue.

For the last four months of his stay at Race Course Road, Inder Kumar Gujral headed a caretaker ministry. Yet it was precisely then that Gujral went on an appointment binge for his cronies's benefit.

Two of these United Front nominees to be given plum posts were Satish Chandran and Arun Mukherjee. They became the governors of Goa and Mizoram respectively. Nobody paid much attention to this at the time, thanks to the noise of electioneering. But such immortality can't, and shouldn't be ignored forever. That is why we should welcome the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government's decision to appoint new men in Aizawl and Panjim.

The decision needn't be taken as a judgement on Chandran and Mukherjee personally. Both enjoyed distinguished records in the bureaucracy. Satish Chandran was an IAS officer who rose to be Deve Gowda's principal secretary. Mukherjee, an IPS officer, was special aide to Indrajit Gupta.

But the manner in which they were appointed was highly objectionable. To go back to first principles, in a parliamentary democracy the council of ministers doesn't have any independent powers. It enjoys only such authority as the responsible legislature chooses to delegate.

The Gujral ministry's power were severely curtailed the moment the eleventh Lok Sabha was dissolved. Unfortunately, the United Front refused to respect the time-honoured conventions that limit a caretaker government's rights. The appointment of new governors in January 1998 was manifestly unethical.

What was the hurry in sending Chandran to Goa and Mukherjee to Mizoram? The law provides for the appointment of an acting governor (usually the governor of a neighbouring state).

The hypocrisy of the Gujral ministry is easily demonstrated. I am sure everybody remembers the week-long drama that took place in Lucknow, beginning on February 21. Then governor Romesh Bhandari sacked the Kalyan Singh ministry and handed over Uttar Pradesh to a puppet regime headed by Jagdambika Pal. That illegal action was overthrown by the courts, a definite slap in the face for Bhandari.

President K R Narayanan then asked Gujral whether Bhandari shouldn't be sacked. (Not in so many words and far more politely, but that was the gist of his message.) Upon this, the United Front Cabinet declined to take any action. The reason given was that a caretaker government lacked the authority to advise Rashtrapati Bhawan on so delicate an issue.

Realisation dawned very late, didn't it! Because the same set of ministers had assumed precisely that right in January. If the Gujral ministry wasn't competent to sack Bhandari in February, by what right did it appoint Satish Chandran and Arun Mukherjee in January?

So there is an important constitutional point involved in pushing Chandran and Mukherjee out of their plum postings. But why did the other governors who were asked to resign lose their jobs?

Some of them had already completed their tenure. As for Krishna Pal Singh in Gandhinagar, suffice it to say that he ran Bhandari a close second in thwarting constitutional norms. He played a highly questionable role in the complicated machinations that brought Shankersinh Vaghela to power.

But it wasn't quite a wholesale vendetta. Governor A R Kidwai has given every impression of being equally partisan in Bihar. He waited far too long to grant permission to prosecute Laloo Prasad Yadav in the fodder scam. He cheerfully nominated Sadhu Yadav, Laloo's brother-in-law, to the Bihar legislative council on the grounds that he was a 'social worker!' Yet he hasn't been dumped outright.

Of course, there is a convention that a governor serves for three years. (He normally stays on for much longer of course.) But can't he be shifted out of Patna even if the government is reluctant to kick him out as he deserves?

Attorney-General Soli Sorabjee has put his stamp of approval on the call for taking another look at the Constitution. I fervently urge that we should definitely examine the role of a governor if nothing else.

Indian democracy can't afford any more Bhandaris. But I am not sure which is worse -- Bhandari's autocratic whimsies or the patent lack of ethics in a caretaker ministry doling out jobs for cronies.

T V R Shenoy