There appears to be a kind of radio silence over the dismissal of Arunachal Pradesh Governor Jyoti Prakash Rajkhowa. Despite the government’s bluster and blunderbuss, it seems to have suddenly retreated into an awkward silence. The answer to this riddle doesn’t lie so much in the numerous political calculations and manipulations, as much as they lie in certain vague and ambiguous clauses in the Constitution.

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There are certain ‘silences’ in the constitution which ironically create a furore and raise an infernal din from time to time. The lack of specific provisions regarding how governors are to be appointed, and how they are to be dismissed or sacked, is one such example. And this void in the Constitution, especially the vaguely worded term “doctrine of presidential pleasure” as mentioned in Article 156, has resulted in a situation which is nothing short of a ‘Raj Bhavan Roulette’.

The latest example is that of Arunachal Pradesh Governor Jyoti Prasad Rajkhowa being asked by the Centre to vacate office on grounds of ill health. Contesting the government’s order, Rajkhowa claims that he is in the pink of health and has even gone ahead and challenged the government to get the President of India to sack him. But his dismissal seems imminent, as reported by PTI.

There has been no concrete answer, reply or clarification from the government yet; only Home Minister Rajnath Singh has told Rajkhowa that the order has come from the “highest quarters”. Yet, Singh met the President and apparently pressed for Rajkhowas’s dismissal.

It is now widely known, as well as being speculated in political circles, that Rajkhowa imposed President’s Rule in Arunachal Pradesh at the behest of the Modi-ruled central government.  And for that, he got a sound walloping from the Supreme Court, which in its July 13, 2016, ruling minced no words in accusing him of being complicit in trying to topple a democratically elected government.

But then, Rajkhowa was not acting on his own volition, because the Constitution makes it incumbent upon the Governor as well as the President to act upon the aid and advice of the Cabinet.

So, is the Centre’s action a face-saving gesture for itself as well as Rajkhowa? The question remains moot. Is it just to make him a scapegoat to save the government’s own back?

But that is not the question one needs to ask. In fact, there are a couple of questions which beg for answers.

The first one is the entire method and practice of appointing governors because it has almost become de rigeur for political parties ruling at the centre to appoint governors of their choice in the states. And in most cases, they are party loyalists who have to be somehow rehabilitated once their active political careers are over. Then is the centre’s itch to control, by proxy, the governments of the states where it doesn’t hold sway.

Starting right from the time of Indira Gandhi, this has become the usual practice. The Congress government also did the same when it came back to power in 2004. There was a big outcry and  scaremongering about the BJP government storming into power in 2014, and sacking governors en masse, starting with Kamla Beniwal, who, as Governor of Gujarat, was a thorn in Modi’s side. Then it was the turn of Mizoram Governor Aziz Qureshi, who moved the Supreme Court in 2014. The court observed that such summary dismissal of high constitutional dignitaries like governors was a depreciable practice.

Prior to that, on May 7, 2010, the apex court, in the case of a PIL filed by BJP MP BP Singhal clearly stated that governors are not to be “rubber stamps” of the Centre in the states, and could not be dismissed merely because their ideologies were at loggerheads with the top bosses at the Centre.

The second question is far more crucial. What does “presidential pleasure” mean? What is its scope and ambit?

This doctrine was evolved in 1979, a bench of five Supreme Court judges deliberated upon the criteria of gubernatorial eligibility. The appointment of Raghulal Tilak as Governor of Rajasthan was under challenge.

The Court ruled that since a governor is appointed by the President, he is a Constitutional functionary, not an employee or servant of the Government of India. Only when a governor loses the confidence of the President can he be removed. Enjoying the confidence of the President—termed the doctrine of “Presidential Pleasure”—is contingent upon certain conditions. The most important is that the President doesn’t have a free hand. He is bound to act on the advice of the Council of Ministers. This leaves a clear route for central governments to follow to remove governors undesirable to them. In fact, it paves the path for political capriciousness and various forms of skullduggery.

So, whatever be the culmination of the Rajkhowa imbroglio, the time is ripe to define the limits of the President and government’s whims and caprices. Else, political integrity would be in peril. And so would be the very ideas of democracy and principles of constitutionalism.