In a PIL (Civil W.P. No 296 of 2004, B.P. Singhal v. Union of India) the Supreme Court on Friday, 7th may 2010, ruled that the governors cannot be removed on grounds of “lack of confidence” or “conflict of political and ideological opinions” with the party in power at the centre.
A constitution bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, Justice S.H. Kapadia, Justice B. Sudarshan Reddy, Justice R.V. Raveendran and Justice P. Sathasivam said the arbitrary removal of a governor was subject to a “limited judicial review”.
The court gave its verdict while disposing off a petition challenging the removal of the then governors of Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana and Goa July 2, 2004 by the United Progressive Alliance government after it took over from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance.
The court said “change in government at the centre is not a ground for removal of governors holding office to make way for others favoured by the new government”.
Writing the judgment for the constitution bench, Justice Raveendran said that under the constitution there was no need to assign the reasons for the removal of a governor.
“As there is no need to assign reasons, any removal as a consequence of withdrawal of the pleasure (of the president on the advise of central government) will be assumed to be valid and will be open to only a limited judicial review.”
The judgment said that if a governor, removed without assigning reasons, moved the apex court and is able to “demonstrate prima facie that his removal was either arbitrary, malafide, capricious or whimsical, the court will call upon the government to disclose to the court the material upon which the president had taken the decision to withdraw the pleasure”.
The judgement said: “If the government does not disclose any reason, or if the reasons disclosed are found to be irrelevant, arbitrary, whimsical or malafide, the court will interfere. However, the court will not interfere merely on the ground that a different view is possible or that the material or reasons are insufficient.”
The court said though no reasons were needed to be assigned for discontinuance of the pleasure of the president under Article 156(1), the exercise of such a power could not be in “an arbitrary, capricious or unreasonable manner”.
