B P Singhal vs. Union of India, 2010

• On the suggestion of the Council of Ministers, the President of India removed the Governors of Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh on July 2, 2004.
• As a result, a writ petition in the form of a Public Interest Litigation was filed, requesting the reinstatement of the abovementioned Governors of the States.
• A Governor of a State is appointed by the President of India and serves 'during the pleasure of the President,' according to Articles 155 and 156 of The Constitution of India, 1949. In most cases, a Governor can stay in office for a maximum of five years.
• However, Article 74 requires the President to act on the advice of the Council and the facts that led to the Governors' removal. Second, a Writ of Certiorari was filed, demanding the quashing of the same order, as well as a Writ of Mandamus, requesting the removal of Ministers, allowing the Governor to continue in office in accordance with the wishes of the Central Government in power.
• In the current case, the petitioner first demanded the production of papers and then that the four Governors be permitted to serve out the remainder of their five-year terms. This case was heard by a four-judge constitutional bench of India's Supreme Court.

• Whether the petition so filed was maintainable before the Court?
• What is the scope of ‘Doctrine of Pleasure’ under The Constitution of India, 1949?
• Whether Article 156 clause (1) of The Constitution of India, 1949 is subjected to any expressed restrictions or limitations?
• What is the position of a Governor under The Constitution of India,1949?
• What is the scope of judicial review in case of withdrawal of the President's pleasure?

The honorable judges of the Supreme Court view that:

The court states that Doctrine of Pleasure cannot be applied as an unrestricted or absolute provision of law. The court referred to Article 310 (2) and Article 311, clause (1) and clause (2) of The Constitution of India, 1949, and it was condemned that even in these articles of The Indian Constitution, the application of the doctrine is not wholly unrestricted. Furthermore, a reference was made to three different case scenarios where,

• offices are held during the pleasure of President,
• office is held during the pleasure of the President but subject to certain restrictions and,
• office is held by the office holders without being subject to Doctrine of Pleasure but for a specified terms with immunity against removal, except by impeachment. Thus, pinpointing the variation in application of the ‘Doctrine of pleasure’ to different jobs. The court then went on to list such offices as follows:
  • those offices where doctrine of pleasure was applied absolutely and without any restrictions. These include offices of ministers, Governors, Attorney general and Advocate general,
  • those offices where the doctrine of pleasure was applicable with restrictions. These types of offices included members of civil service of the Union, member of Defense services, members of Defense service, holders of post connected to Defense and civil post under the Union, members of an All-India service.
  • Lastly, those offices were mentioned by the court, wherein, the doctrine of pleasure is not applicable at all. These included the offices of the President, Judges of the Supreme Court, Judges of the High Court, controller and Auditor General of India, and Election Commissioners. Therefore, keeping in mind the constitutional schemes of India, the extent of protection against removal cannot be mixed for different offices as it is different for different offices based on the above mentioned categories.
  • In a constitutional set-up, when the Doctrine of Pleasure is provided in certain scenarios without any restrictions of any sort, it should be used responsibly and not be confused to be an instrument or means providing any unchecked discretion to act arbitrarily, capriciously or unreasonably in any case. Even though it is not made mandatory by the court to provide reasons for the removal of the Governor, the removal can only be done for valid reasons and not because of any personal prejudice or invalid reasons.

• A Governor cannot be removed for ulterior motives as to make way for another Governor or merely because his personal ideologies don’t fall in sync with the Union of Ministers or because of the President losing confidence in him. These three reasons are considered to be invalid grounds for the removal of the Governor from their post.
• The court referred to the article 156 (1), 156 (3), 310 and 311 of The Constitution of India, 1949. The court then went on to proceed to explaining the meaning of article 156 of The Constitution which shows that the Governor is appointed by the President and shall continue to remain in office during the pleasure of the President. The court then laid down a nexus between article 156 clause (1) and 156 clause (3) of The Indian Constitution, 1949, and stated that clause (3) doesn’t place any restrictions upon clause (1) of the same provision. It only specifies the tenure of the Governor for which he is to remain in office, which as specified, is 5 years if he or she doesn’t resign or is removed from his or her office.  Then the court made comparisons to these provisions to Articles 310 and 311, where Doctrine of Pleasure is subject to certain restrictions. The article 311(2) states that no employee can be removed from service except after an inquiry which informs him about the charges put against him. Thus, this express provisions place a restriction on the Doctrine of Pleasure for removal of an employee.  However, Article156(3) only specifies the tenure of the government and places no such restriction on the scope of Doctrine of Pleasure provided under Article 156(1).
• The court then went on to explain, that even though article 156(1) provides that a Governor should hold office during the pleasure of the President and article 74 binds a President to follow the advice of the Union of Ministers. The removal of the Governor, even if comes without the compulsion of disclosing the reasons for such removal, requires that the removal should be done based on justifiable and valid reasons in a reasonable manner.
• So, therefore, the burden of proof would lie upon the aggrieved to proof that his removal was a prima facie instance of arbitrariness and mala fide, as the court upon the withdrawal of the pleasure, would automatically go on to assume that it was done on the basis of compelling reasons.  Therefore, only in a case when there is a prima facie evidence of capriciousness and mala fide made out, can the court direct for the production of records and material to decide whether the withdrawal was really for compelling reasons or not.
• Therefore, only in cases of existence of very strong evidence can the judicial review be resorted to which really narrows down the scope of judicial reviews.

• This was a landmark judgement on removal of governors and pleasure of president. This judgement gave power of president to take a decision about removal of governor. The president is superior and can remove any person without any assigning reason.
• The governor is a head of his state but gets his office by president so he is bound to president for his office. The court also mentioned that the governor can’t be changed because of change in union government.