DMK MP moves bill to remove Guv's Constitutional immunity against criminal prosecution

CHENNAI: DMK Rajya Sabha MP P Wilson on Friday moved a private member’s bill in the upper house of the Parliament to suitably amend the Constitution and remove the Constitutional immunity available to governors of states to initiate civil and criminal proceedings against them.

Moving (Private members) Bill No IX of 2024 to further amend Article 361 of the Constitution to provide for initiating criminal proceedings against the Governors with the President’s sanction, Wilson said that the treatment of the Governor on par with the President of India is fallacious since the President is elected by an electoral college comprising elected representatives of the Houses of Parliament and Legislatures of the states.

“The President is a democratically elected head of the union, whereas the Governor is a mere appointee. Article 157 only prescribes only the basic qualification for the appointment as governor. Thus equating the President and the Governor in matters of immunity is undesirable,” Wilson justified.

Reiterating that the Governor is bound by the aid and advice of the council of ministers of the state and even the state Chief Minister does not enjoy complete immunity from prosecution, the senior advocate of the Madras High Court said that the CM could be prosecuted after obtaining sanction and there should be a provision to prosecute the governor for criminal offences after obtaining the sanction of the President who appoints him.

Remarking that it was undesirable to place the governor at a better position than the democratically elected CM of the state, Wilson drew the Parliament’s attention to allegations of sexual offences and incitement of violence made against governors, and said that the idea that a person, howsoever high, be beyond the reach of courts and the justice administration system is a colonial relic and cannot be a part of a democracy administered by a written Constitution and the rule of law. “If governors misuse their office to provoke breach of peace or act against public interest, they must face legal consequences,” the DMK MP said in the Rajya Sabha.

The immunity under Article 361 (1) to the governor from answering to any court for the exercise and performance of his official duties is sufficient protection to ensure that a governor does not answer cases filed against his official decisions personally, he argued, reasoning that the immunity need not extend to criminal offences or civil wrongs committed by a governor in his personal capacity.