A Conundrum of Constitutional Mandate and Discretionary Powers of a Governor in the Event of a Hung Assembly

The office of the Governor is a constitutional one, he is not considered as one belonging to the legislative organ, but he is reckoned to be the head of state executive structure. The main aim of the Governor is to support the concerns of both- the States and the Union and to ensure a continuous flow of powers with no overlap. The Governor stays in office at the pleasure of the President and, hence attributes his appointment to the President. To facilitate an effective balance of powers between the union and state, the Indian constitution has accurately given some powers to the Governor. Nevertheless, there have been several occasions wherein the Governor has misemployed his constitutional powers, one such occasion being at the time of appointment of the Chief Minister of a State in a situation of a hung assembly. Hence, the main objective of this paper would be to analyse the scope of discretionary powers of a Governor with respect to a hung assembly in light of contemporary events. Also, the paper will lay down the judicial developments in this regard and what innovative solutions can be implemented to resolve this State-Governor dilemma.