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Showing contexts for: Constitutional conventions in B.P. Singhal vs Union Of India & Anr on 7 May, 2010Matching Fragments
24. In State of Rajasthan vs. Union of India - 1977 (3) SCC 592, a Constitution Bench of this Court described the position of Governor thus:
"67. The position of the Governor as the Constitutional head of State as a unit of the Indian Union as well as the formal channel of communication between the Union and the State Government, who is appointed under Article 155 of the Constitution "by the President by Warrant under his hand and seal," was also touched in the course of arguments before us. On the one hand, as the Constitutional head of the State, he is ordinarily bound, by reason of a constitutional convention, by the advice of his Council of Ministers conveyed to him through the Chief Minister barring very exceptional circumstances among which may be as pointed out by my learned brothers Bhagwati and Iyer, JJ., in Shamsher Singh's case, (1974 (2) SCC 31), a situation in which an appeal to the electorate by a dissolution is called for. On the other hand, as the defender of "the Constitution and the law" and the watch-dog of the interests of the whole country and well-being of the people of his State in particular, the Governor is vested with certain discretionary powers in the exercise of which he can act independently. One of his independent functions is the making of the report to the Union Government on the strength of which Presidential power under Article 356(1) of the Constitution could be exercised. In so far as he acts in the larger interests of the people, appointed by the President "to defend the constitution and the Law" he acts as an observer on behalf of the Union and has to keep a watch on how the administrative machinery and each organ of constitutional government is working in the state. Unless he keeps such a watch over all governmental activities and the state of public feelings about them, he cannot satisfactorily discharge his function of making the report which may form the basis of the Presidential satisfaction under Article 356(1) of the Constitution."