Governor, Chief Minister and Vidhan Sabha of Haryana

Haryana came into being on 1 November 1966 under the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966, which divided the old Punjab on a linguistic basis and made Chandigarh a Union Territory serving as the capital of both states. The government of the new state follows the pattern that Part VI of the Constitution lays down for every state: a Governor as the constitutional head under Articles 153 to 162, a Chief Minister and Council of Ministers who hold the real power under Articles 163 to 167, and a legislature under Articles 168 to 212. Haryana chose a single House, so its legislature consists of the Governor and the Vidhan Sabha alone. Dharma Vira was the first Governor of the state and Pandit Bhagwat Dayal Sharma its first Chief Minister. HSSC, HPSC, Haryana CET and SSC papers ask for the seats, the articles, the first office-holders and the limits on the size of the Council of Ministers.

The Governor of Haryana

Article 153 says there shall be a Governor for each state, and since the Seventh Amendment of 1956 the same person may be appointed Governor of two or more states. The Governor is appointed by the President by warrant under his hand and seal under Article 155, and is not elected; Article 156 gives a term of five years but says he holds office during the pleasure of the President, which means the term is not secure. Article 157 fixes the qualifications: the person must be a citizen of India and must have completed thirty-five years of age. Article 158 says he shall not be a member of either House of Parliament or of a state legislature, shall hold no other office of profit, and that his emoluments and allowances are charged on the Consolidated Fund of the State and cannot be reduced during his term. The oath is administered under Article 159 by the Chief Justice of the High Court of the state, which for Haryana means the Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court at Chandigarh. His powers include assent to bills under Article 200, where he may assent, withhold assent, return a bill other than a money bill for reconsideration or reserve it for the President; the ordinance power of Article 213, which may be used when the House is not in session and whose ordinance ceases to operate six weeks after the House reassembles; and the pardon power of Article 161, which allows him to suspend, remit or commute a death sentence but not to grant a pardon in a death-sentence case or in a case tried by a court-martial.

The Chief Minister and the Council of Ministers

Article 163 says there shall be a Council of Ministers with the Chief Minister at its head to aid and advise the Governor, except where he acts in his discretion. Under Article 164 the Chief Minister is appointed by the Governor, the other ministers are appointed by the Governor on the advice of the Chief Minister, and the Council of Ministers is collectively responsible to the Legislative Assembly; the ministers hold office during the pleasure of the Governor. Two limits from Article 164 are asked often. First, clause (1A), inserted by the Ninety-first Amendment Act of 2003, says the total number of ministers including the Chief Minister shall not exceed fifteen per cent of the total number of members of the Legislative Assembly, and shall not be fewer than twelve; with 90 seats in the Haryana Vidhan Sabha, the ceiling works out to thirteen ministers. Second, clause (4) says a minister who is not a member of the legislature for six consecutive months ceases to be a minister. Article 165 provides for an Advocate-General appointed by the Governor, Article 166 says all executive action is expressed in the name of the Governor, and Article 167 makes it the duty of the Chief Minister to communicate the decisions of the Council of Ministers to the Governor and to submit for the consideration of the Council any matter on which a minister has decided alone.

The Haryana Vidhan Sabha

Article 168 leaves it to Parliament to give a state one House or two, and Haryana, like most states, has only a Legislative Assembly; there is no Vidhan Parishad. The House sits in the Vidhan Bhavan in the Capitol Complex at Chandigarh, the civic group designed by Le Corbusier that was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2016, and it shares the complex with Punjab. The Assembly began in 1966 with 54 members drawn from the Haryana region of the undivided Punjab legislature, rose to 81 seats at the general election of 1967 and has had 90 seats since 1977. Of these, 17 are reserved for the Scheduled Castes; Haryana has no Scheduled Tribes seats because no tribe has been notified in the state. The state returns 10 members to the Lok Sabha and 5 to the Rajya Sabha. Article 170 allows an Assembly of not more than 500 and not fewer than 60 members elected directly from territorial constituencies, Article 172 gives a term of five years from the date of the first meeting unless dissolved earlier, and Article 173 fixes a minimum age of 25 years for a candidate. Under Article 174 the Governor summons the House so that not more than six months pass between the last sitting of one session and the first sitting of the next, and Article 176 requires him to address the House at the first session after each general election and at the first session of each year.

Procedure, officers and the numbers to remember

The Assembly elects a Speaker and a Deputy Speaker from among its members under Article 178, and either may be removed by a resolution passed by a majority of all the then members of the House after fourteen days notice. Article 188 requires every member to take an oath before the Governor or a person appointed by him, and Article 193 imposes a penalty of five hundred rupees a day on a person who sits and votes before taking the oath or after becoming disqualified. Under Article 190 a seat falls vacant if a member is absent for sixty days without permission, and under Article 192 a question of disqualification is decided by the Governor, who must obtain the opinion of the Election Commission and act according to it; disqualification on the ground of defection, however, is decided by the Speaker under the Tenth Schedule. A money bill can be introduced only on the recommendation of the Governor under Article 207, and the annual financial statement, the state budget, is laid before the House under Article 202. Haryana contributed one of the best-known phrases of Indian politics to this chapter: the words Aaya Ram Gaya Ram came from the defections of 1967, when Gaya Lal changed his party three times in a fortnight, and the episode is part of the background to the anti-defection law of 1985.