Kochi : Presidents and Governors of India are tasked with announcing govt policy, in a tradition patterned after the British hierarchy. The queen of England reads out the government policy to British Parliament. The President does that in our Parliament and the Governors do it in their respective State Assemblies.
Here is an excerpt from P Rajeev’s article titled the ‘ചരിത്രവും സംസ്ക്കാരവും (History and Culture) ‘ hinting dictates of the norm.
Once in the Parliament in 1841, when Vitoria was queen of Great Britain, she objected to certain portions of the govt policy speech and asked for changes. However the cabinet refused to make any alteration to the prepared draft whatsoever. Following the faceoff, the Queen was forced to read the document verbatim. This then is the unique feature of British Parliamentary system. The Queen’s speech is essentially the text prepared by the cabinet of ministers and contains programmes and policies proposed by the govt. The onus of it all rests on the cabinet.
The Indian Constitution takes after the British system. This is why Governor’s speech is spoken of as Government’s speech. Doubts have been raised from time to time if, the governor can modify the speech on hand. Here, the renowned Parliamentarian Brupesh Gupta’s take on the issue is notable :. “The Constitution confers no discretionary power to the Governor so as to be able to modify the policy speech prepared by the cabinet. That the Governor’s speech is nothing but ministerial speech is made amply clear by set norms, our Constitution and British parliamentary system. And, our country follows the British Parliamentary system”, he had said.
