The Hindu Business Line : Kicking up dust to no purpose

The Justice Madan Mohan Punchi Commission on Centre-State Relations set up in April 2007 has embarked on the customary and compulsive rigmarole of issuing a questionnaire and inviting statements from the public on the issues covered by its terms of reference.

It has been given two years to complete its work, but, again, as in the case of all such Commissions appointed since Independence, the chance of the time limit being adhered to is slim. Its predecessor, the Justice R. S. Sarkaria Commission, took more than five years from 1983 to 1988 to submit its report, only to see it ignored in many vital respects.

For instance, it had urged upon the Government to follow some essential criteria for the selection of persons to be appointed as Governors. It had laid down that he should be eminent in some walk of life and dissociated from politics.

Further, it had expressed itself against a politician from the ruling party at the Union being appointed to a State run by some other party or combination of parties and against someone being thrust upon the State without the Chief Minister’s consent. In the people’s perception, the Governors have continued to be the henchmen of the powers-that-be at the Centre, only too ready to carry out their bidding.

The other issue that has been irking the States is the arbitrary imposition of President’s Rule by the Centre. Here again, the Sarkaria Commission had stipulated some iron-clad ground rules. They have made little difference, as had happened in Bihar and Chattisgarh, to the Centre’s propensity to act whimsically.

The Sarkaria Commission wanted its salient recommendations to be incorporated in the Constitution so as to make compliance binding, but the Centre has turned the Nelson’s eye to this also.

Whatever the degree of insouciance shown by the Centre, the Sarkaria Commission must be credited with having covered the ground extensively and systematically, leaving very little to be desired by way of any further study. The 11 terms of reference to the Punchi Commission have little to do with policies and strategies, but relate mostly to domains in which procedures and approaches either are already, or can be easily, settled.

Waste of time and money

Take the “role, responsibility and jurisdiction of the Centre vis-À-vis States” — the constant refrain with which every term of reference starts — in regard to communal or caste violence or any other social conflict leading to prolonged and escalated violence; planning and implementation of mega projects; devolution of powers and autonomy to panchayati raj institutions and local bodies; independent planning and budgeting at the district level; positive discrimination in favour of backward States; establishing a unified and integrated domestic market; setting up a Central Law Enforcement Agency to deal with crimes having inter-State or international ramifications; and suo motu deployment of Central forces when the situation in a State demands it.

All these form part of day-to-day decision-making for which regular channels of communication and consultation between the Centre and the States already exist in the form of the Planning Commission, National Development Council, Zonal Councils and periodically convened Chief Ministers’ Conferences. Unlike at the time of the Sarkaria Commission, the entire gamut of information technology can nowadays be pressed into service to arrive at an agreed mode of achieving the objectives.

Matters on which the decisions require to be vested with legitimate authority can always be taken before the Inter-State Council which is precisely the Constitutional mechanism meant for building up harmonious relations between the Centre and the States and reconciling the differences between them.

Looked at in the above light, the Punchi Commission is just a distraction, leading to a waste of time and money.

B. S. RAGHAVAN