Constitutional functionaries play a political game

Governors in India are nominal heads of governments. Elected governments function in their name.

The Governor is appointed by the President and holds office at his pleasure. Since the President is bound to act on the advice of the Council of Ministers, a Governor owes his job to the Prime Minister and can be thrown out by him at any time.

There have been many instances of clashes between Governors and Chief Minister. Sometimes this was the result of Governors acting in the interests of the Centre. Sometimes it was the result of Governors’ desire for real power.

Kerala is a state which has been inhospitable to the Bharatiya Janata Party. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first choice for the Governor’s post in Kerala was P. Sathasivan, a retired Chief Justice of India. He worked smoothly with two Chief Ministers, Oommen Chandy of the Congress-led United  Democratic Front and Pinarayi Vijayan of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front.

After Sathasivan completed his term, Modi sent Arif Mohammad Khan, a late migrant to the BJP, to Kerala. A maverick politician with a long party-hopping record, he began well. However later problems cropped up between him and Pinarayi Vijayan, who had won a fresh, stronger electoral mandate.

The two constitutional functionaries are now engaged in a running battle.

Most of the laws governing Kerala’s universities name the Governor as the Chancellor. This has been done to keep the universities outside the state government’s control to ensure academic freedom.

Last December, Arif Mohammad Khan wrote to the Chief Minister saying he does not want to function as the Chancellor. He asked the CM to take over the post by amending the relevant laws.

He told the media he had made or approved irregular university appointments under pressure from the government.

His disillusionment with Chancellorship began when a university rejected his suggestion to confer an honorary doctorate on President Ram Nath  Kovind at the instance of CPI(M) members of the Syndicate.

The Governor’s is a constitutional post. He has to act on the Chief Minister’s advice on matters that come before him in that capacity. But he has no obligation to act on the government’s advice on matters that come to him in his capacity as Chancellor. His statement that he succumbed to pressure from the government in university matters is self-condemnatory.    

After some conciliatory moves by the Chief Minister, Arif Mohammad Khan resumed his duties as Chancellor.

Last week saw another face-off between the Governor and the Chief Minister. As is the custom, the government prepared the text of the Governor’s address to the first Assembly session of the year and sent it to the Governor’s office. He did not immediately approve it. This led to speculation that he might not come and read it in the House.

What annoyed Arif Mohammad Khan was not the contents of the speech but the covering letter with it which made a reference to the appointment of an Additional Personal Assistant in the Governor’s office.

Hari S. Kartha, the newly appointed Additional PA, was earlier an office-bearer of the State BJP.

The covering letter was written by a Government Secretary and addressed to an official in the Governor’s office. It pointed out that ordinarily persons with political affiliation are not appointed to such posts.

These were words the Chief Minister wrote in the file while clearing Kartha’s appointment. A senior bureaucrat is unlikely to have put those words in the covering letter unless he was asked by some higher-up to do so.

The Governor saw it as an insult to him. He said he had received an intelligence report which said Kartha was no longer active in politics.

Howsoever unhappy Arif Mohammad Khan was with the covering letter, he was sure to turn up in the Assembly to read the speech as not to do so would have rendered him guilty of failure to discharge a constitutional responsibility. But Pinarayi Vijayan blinked.

After urgent consultations with senor party colleagues, he ordered transfer of the bureaucrat who wrote the covering letter to another post.

The Chief Minister has come under attack from the CPI, the second largest party of the LDF, and from the opposition UDF for surrendering to the Governor.

Later Arif Mohammad Khan raised the issue of the state government’s practice of allowing each minister to appoint as many as 20 persons on his staff. They become eligible for life-long pension after just two years of service. Usually the ministers replace members of the personal staff after two years to enable more party workers to earn lifelong pension.    

The tiff between the Governor and the Chief Minister was just an ego clash.  

Arif Mohammad Khan momentarily illuminated some corrupt political practices which have taken roots in Kerala. Unfortunately, the context in which he raised the issue reduced it to a political game.