The Governor

1. Appointment, qualifications and tenure

• Article 153 — a Governor for each State; the same person may be appointed for two or more States.
• Article 155 — appointed by the President by warrant under hand and seal, which in practice means by the Union Council of Ministers.
• Article 157 — a citizen of India who has completed 35 years.
• Article 158 — not a member of any legislature and holding no other office of profit.
• Article 156 — holds office during the pleasure of the President, subject to which the term is five years.
• Article 361 — not answerable to any court for the exercise of the powers of the office, and immune from criminal proceedings during the term.

The Sarkaria and Punchhi Commissions both recommended that the Governor be a detached figure from outside the State, not an active politician, and that the Chief Minister be consulted. These remain recommendations only.

2. Removal: the pleasure doctrine after B.P. Singhal

Because Article 156 has no grounds or procedure, Governors were routinely replaced when the government at the Centre changed. In B.P. Singhal v. Union of India, 2010 INSC 286, (2010) 6 SCC 331, a Constitution Bench held:

• The pleasure doctrine in Article 156(1) is not subject to any express limitation, but it cannot be exercised arbitrarily, capriciously or unreasonably; it must be exercised for valid reasons.
• A Governor cannot be removed merely because a new government has come to power at the Centre, or because the Governor is out of tune with its policies or ideology. A Governor is not an agent or employee of the Union government.
• Judicial review is limited. The petitioner must first make out a prima facie case of arbitrariness or mala fides; the Union must then disclose the material before the court.

3. Discretion under Article 163

Article 163(1) requires the Governor to act on the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers “except in so far as he is by or under this Constitution required to exercise his functions or any of them in his discretion”. Article 163(2) makes the Governor's decision on whether a matter falls within discretion final. This is the textual difference from the President, who has no equivalent clause.

Express discretion appears in a few places: acting as administrator of an adjoining Union territory (Article 239(2)); special responsibilities under Article 371 and its variants (for example 371A for Nagaland); certain functions under the Sixth Schedule; and the reservation of Bills for the President under Article 200. Situational discretion arises in choosing a Chief Minister in a hung Assembly, in dismissing a ministry that has lost its majority and will not resign, and in reporting a breakdown under Article 356.

The limit was drawn in Nabam Rebia v. Deputy Speaker, 2016 INSC 526, (2016) 8 SCC 1, the Arunachal Pradesh case. The Governor had, on his own, advanced the Assembly session and fixed the removal of the Speaker as its first item. The Constitution Bench held that Article 163 does not give a general discretion: the Governor may act alone only where the Constitution expressly or by necessary implication requires it. Summoning, proroguing and messages to the House under Articles 174 and 175 are exercised on advice, so long as the government commands a majority. The Governor is not an ombudsman over the Speaker or over disputes inside a political party. Shamsher Singh was followed.

4. Ordinances (Article 213)

The Governor's ordinance power mirrors Article 123: when the Legislature (or, where bicameral, both Houses) is not in session and immediate action is needed. It lapses six weeks after the Legislature reassembles. One addition: the Governor cannot promulgate, without the President's instructions, an ordinance on a matter for which a Bill would need the President's previous sanction or would have to be reserved. D.C. Wadhwa and Krishna Kumar Singh (both Bihar cases) were decided on this Article.

5. Assent to Bills: Articles 200 and 201

When a Bill passed by the State Legislature is presented, the Governor may (Article 200):

• assent;
• withhold assent, in which case, under the first proviso, the Bill is returned to the House with a message; if the House passes it again, the Governor “shall not withhold assent”; or
• reserve the Bill for the President, which is compulsory where the Bill would derogate from the powers of the High Court (second proviso).

Under Article 201 the President then assents or withholds assent, or directs the Governor to return a non-money Bill for reconsideration. No time limit appears in either Article, and that gap produced the recent litigation.

• State of Punjab v. Principal Secretary to the Governor of Punjab, 2023 INSC 1017 — the Governor cannot withhold assent and simply keep the Bill. Withholding must be followed by return to the Legislature under the first proviso; otherwise an unelected head of State could veto legislation indefinitely.
• State of Tamil Nadu v. Governor of Tamil Nadu, 2025 INSC 481 (8 April 2025, a two-judge Bench) — the Governor had withheld assent to ten Bills and, after the Assembly re-passed them, reserved them for the President. The Court held that a Bill re-passed under the first proviso cannot ordinarily then be reserved; it set outer time limits for the Governor (and three months for the President) to act; and, under Article 142, treated the ten Bills as having received assent.
• In Re: Assent, Withholding or Reservation of Bills by the Governor and the President of India, 2025 INSC 1333 (20 November 2025) — a five-judge Bench answering a Presidential reference under Article 143 that followed the Tamil Nadu judgment. In its advisory opinion the Court took the view that the Governor has three courses under Article 200 — assent, reservation, or withholding with return to the Legislature — and no option of indefinite inaction; that courts cannot prescribe fixed timelines for the Governor or the President where the Constitution has none; and that “deemed assent” by judicial order is not permissible, Article 142 not being a means to stand in for the Governor. It accepted a limited judicial review for prolonged and unexplained inaction: the court may direct the Governor to decide within a reasonable time, without examining the merits of the decision.

6. The report under Article 356

Article 356 lets the President act “on receipt of a report from the Governor of a State or otherwise”. In S.R. Bommai v. Union of India, 1994 INSC 111, (1994) 3 SCC 1, the Court held the Proclamation reviewable, required the material relied on to be relevant, and said that whether a ministry has lost its majority is to be tested on the floor of the Assembly, not in the Raj Bhavan. In Rameshwar Prasad v. Union of India, 2006 INSC 42, (2006) 2 SCC 1, the Bihar Governor's report recommending dissolution of a newly elected Assembly, on unverified claims of horse-trading to prevent a party from staking a claim, was held mala fide and the dissolution unconstitutional. Article 361 protects the Governor personally; it does not protect the report from scrutiny.

How this is examined

“Discuss the powers and position of the Governor” and “Is the Governor a mere constitutional head?” appear in recent KSLU papers, and the appointment of a Chief Minister is set as a separate question. Organise the answer as: appointment and removal (B.P. Singhal); Article 163 and its narrow reading (Shamsher Singh, Nabam Rebia); the legislative powers (ordinances, assent with the 2023 and 2025 cases); and the emergency role (Bommai, Rameshwar Prasad). A paragraph on the Tamil Nadu litigation now marks an answer as current.