Nearly five years after announcing that its work on the Punchhi Commission's report on Centre-state relations is “complete”, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has decided to start the process of seeking the states' comments on the issue afresh. The matter recently came to light in Parliament through a reply given by the MHA to an unstarred question asked by Sukhendu Sekhar Ray, the Rajya Sabha member of the Trinamool Congress (TMC). The party is planning to rake up the Punchhi panel's recommendations to rally “like-minded Opposition parties” on "the cause of federalism". “It has been decided to obtain updated comments of the State Governments/ UT Administrations on the recommendations of the Standing Committee. In view of this, a meeting of the ISC (Inter-State Council) to discuss the Punchhi Commission recommendations could not be held,” the Minister of State in the Home Ministry Nityanand Rai told the Rajya Sabha on February 8. The Punchhi Commission was constituted by the then Manmohan Singh-led UPA government in April 2007 under the chairmanship of former Chief Justice of India (CJI) Madan Mohan Punchhi. In 2010, the Commission submitted its report to the Centre in seven volumes. Among its recommendations were those pertaining to clipping of the Governors' wings. The Punchhi panel's recommendations were considered by the ISC's Standing Committee at its meetings held in April 2017, November 2017 and May 2018 – a period when Rajnath Singh was the Union Home Minister. Following the meeting of the ISC's Standing Committee on May 25, 2018, the Centre announced that the “work on Punchhi Commission Report, that had been pending for the last eight years, has been completed” with Rajnath “expressing satisfaction” over completion of deliberations on all the 273 recommendations of the panel's report. “These recommendations of the Standing Committee finalized in the earlier two meetings as well as in today's meeting will be placed before the Inter-State Council for decision,” said an official statement that was then released. But with the BJP-led Centre now deciding to go back to the states for another round of feedback on the report, that process is set to be further delayed. “Whenever there is any serious attempt to forge unity in the Opposition ranks, the Trinamool Congress, which has been chasing the government for answers on this issue since 2018, will highlight this issue. When the states, including West Bengal, have already shared their feedback once, where is the need for another round of consultations? The Centre wants to get views that are favourable to it,” Ray told The Indian Express. The TMC's plan to dust off the Punchhi panel's report comes at a time when many state governments headed by non-BJP parties are having frequent conflicts with the Governors, the Centre's representatives, over various matters of jurisdiction, drawing charges of political bias in the functioning of the high constitutional office from the Opposition. A key reason behind the TMC's bid to reignite a debate on the panel's report is the point that its recommendations, if accepted, will reshape the role of the Governors besides enhancing the powers of the state governments considerably. On the appointment of Governors, while the Sarkaria Commission had recommended that the chief ministers be also consulted on the issue, the Punchhi panel states that the “Governor must not have participated in active politics at the Centre or State or local level for at least a couple of years before his appointment”. The Punchhi Commission also recommended that it is “necessary to provide for impeachment of the Governor on the same lines as provided for impeachment of the President in Article 61 of the Constitution” and that the “Governor should not be burdened with positions and powers which are not envisaged by the Constitution and which may expose the office to controversies or public criticism” like the posts of the Chancellors of the universities. On the imposition of the President's rule, the panel said all alternative courses available to the Union government for discharging its responsibility under Article 355 should be exhausted to contain the situation and the exercise of the power under Article 356 should be limited strictly to rectifying a "failure of the Constitutional machinery in the State".
