Discretionary Powers of the Governor: Constitutional Vision and Observed Realities

Abstract

Right from the adoption of the Indian Constitution a hot debate is going on regarding discretionary power of governors. The Office of the Governor, not being an elected constitutional functionary, has been in the eye of a storm. Our Constitution makers wanted a governor who would act as a friend and sagacious advisor of the Council of Ministers. He should be a person who is expected to be above party and politics. But very soon these pious hopes were shattered. Arguments and counter-arguments started generating more heat but less light after 1967 because most of the state legislatures were captured by the non-Congress parties. The governors came to be seen or suspected as the agents of the union government. The present article is a brief narration of governor’s discretionary powers as our founding fathers hoped and how governors have actually behaved with such powers just to please the leadership of the party in power at the centre contrary to the vision of the makers.