How KCR slyly struck off Governor’s address from Budget Session

The Telangana government on Monday made a sly, yet tactical move by using a technical point of law, to avoid the governor’s address to the joint session of the Assembly in a new calendar year (2022), which usually happens to be a budget session.

On Monday evening, Assembly Secretary, Narasimha Charyulu, issued a notification, intimating that “the second meeting of the eighth session of the Second Telangana Legislative Assembly will commence at 11.30 A M on Monday, the 7th March 2022…”. While a similar notification was issued for the Legislative Council, no such notification was published for a joint session of the two houses – which is usually convened for the governor’s address.

Apprehensions about Governor Tamilsai Soundarrajan’s possible objections to the speech (prepared by the government) as it may contain anti-BJP references, could be the reason for avoiding this Constitutional mandate and conventional propriety.

Also read: Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva: Delhi can create, use, destroy Governors at will

Let’s see how the Telangana government cleverly circumvented this constitutional norm.

Governor vs Council of Ministers

The governor as the nominal head of the state has authority to summon the House to meet at such a time and place as he thinks fit…(Article 174) and ‘right’ to address the House (Article 175).  As per these two articles as well as Article 163, the governor can exercise these powers only on the advice of the Council of Ministers.

Article 174, which deals with ‘sessions of the state Legislature, prorogation and dissolution’ says:

(1) “the governor shall from time to time summon the House or each House of the legislature of the state to meet at such time and place as he thinks fit, but six months shall not intervene between its last sitting in one session and the date appointed for its first sitting in the next session”.

(2) says that the governor may from time to time, (a) prorogue the House or either House; (b) dissolve the Legislative Assembly.

The governor is de jure head while the chief minister is de facto head of a state. Hence on his own, the governor cannot prorogue or summon the House without any advice from the Council of Ministers. It is the Council of Ministers that decides the business of the House for a session of the legislature.

Technically speaking, the session of House comes to an end only when it is prorogued by the governor on the advice of the Council of Ministers. In this case, it appears that the Telangana Cabinet sent no communication to advise the governor to prorogue after the last meeting of the eighth session. This enabled the government to comfortably schedule the next meeting, which does not mean the summoning of the House for next session. Because it is in fact, a continuation of Eighth Session (though the meeting ended sine die) which will resume on March 7. The contention is that this is not first session in the new calendar year, and hence the governor need not address it. All this is according to strict ‘letter’ of the Constitutional provisions.

Limited powers?

Article 175 starts with the phrase “Right of governor” to address and send messages to the House or Houses. But in the text, the word used is ‘may’. In law, ‘may’ always includes ‘may not’. It says:

(1) The governor may address the Legislative Assembly or, in the case of a state having a Legislative Council, either House of the legislature of the state, or both Houses assembled together, and may for that purpose require the attendance of members.

(2) The governor may send messages to the House or Houses of the legislature of the state, whether with respect to a Bill then pending in the legislature or otherwise, and a House to which any message is so sent shall with all convenient dispatch consider any matter required by the message to be taken into consideration.

Article 176 which has the provision of “special address by the governor” says that “the governor shall address every session of the legislative assembly. It was amended within one year of the Constitution, by first amendment in 1951. The amended article says “…at the commencement of first session after each general election and at the commencement of the first session of each year, the governor shall address …” It is, thus mandatory. The governor can summon, and address the joint session or only Legislative Assembly if there is no council.

Governments wary of ‘central agents’

The courts have emphasised that the governor’s speech is “not an idle formality as its purpose is to announce the executive policies and the legislative programme and therefore, it serves as a springboard for discussions in the legislature, either for approval of disapproval of administrative policies”. These are all ideal situations where all constitutional officeholders perform their roles as per the Constitution.

India’s history of constitutional functioning since 1950 shows that most of the governors of the states where an opposition party is in rule, have been hostile and created hurdles in the rule of the former. Nowadays, the selected formal head of the state, the governor, acts as if he/she is the real head while the Union government treats his/her as its agent, expecting the elected head of the state or political executive o surrender to wishes of the governor.

Ever since Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao took an aggressive stand against the Centre, the relation between the Raj Bhavan and Pragati Bhavan has not been very conducive as seen between KCR and Narasimhan during the former’s first term after the formation of Telangana. The latest move of omitting the governor’s address may worsen the relation further.

Also read: Kerala govt seeks right to control and recall Governors

It is also in this context that one has to see how the chief minister confronts the hostile atmosphere with the governor. KCR’s move of using the opportunity of the House not being prorogued to avoid the governor’s speech altogether before the 2022 budget, is an obvious sign of hostility between two constitutional heads.

(The writer is Dean, School of Law, Mahindra University, Hyderabad, and former Central Information Commissioner.)

(The Federal seeks to present views and opinions from all sides of the spectrum. The information, ideas or opinions in the articles are of the author and do not reflect the views of The Federal.)