Centre-State relations

Context: Relations between the Centre and the States ruled by Opposition parties are strained due to various factors.

This includes

• Questions related to GST (Compensation), the partisan behaviour of central agencies, the Centre’s move to give itself absolute powers in the transfer of IAS, IPS and IFS officers and the overbearing attitude of several Governors.
• The relations among States are also fraying in many instances even as the Centre’s moral authority to be a neutral arbiter is at a low. The tendency to mobilise political support in one State by berating other States.

Recommendations to improve Centre-State Relations

Administrative reforms commission

• Establishment of an Inter-state council under Article 263 of the constitution.
• Appointment of persons having long-experiences in public life and non-partisan attitudes as governors.
• Delegated maximum powers to the states.
• Transferring of more financial resources to the states to reduce their dependency upon the centre.

Sarkaria commission recommendation:

• Setting up a permanent inter-state council.
• Article 356 should be used sparingly.
• Institution of all-India service should be strengthened.
• Reasons should be communicated to the state when state bills are vetoed by the President.
• Centre should have powers to deploy its armed forces, even without the consent of states. However, it is desirable that the states should be consulted.
• Procedure of consulting the chief minister in the appointment of the state governor should be prescribed in the constitution itself
• Commissioner for linguistic minorities should be activated.

Punchhi commission

Union should be extremely restrained in asserting Parliamentary supremacy in matters assigned to the states

• It prescribed certain conditions that one should keep in mind while appointing governors:
• He should be eminent in some walk of life.
• He should be a person from outside the state.
• He should be a detached figure and not connected with the local politics.
• Government should be given a fixed tenure of five years.
• Procedure given for the impeachment of the President could be made applicable to governor as well.
• Bommai case guidelines should be kept in mind while deciding cases related to President’s rule
• Inter-state council should be made more use of to further centre-state relations.

Source: The Hindu