The Uttar Pradesh, Orissa and Andhra assemblies grabbed the headlines with violent scenes recently. These were disturbing but sadly not shocking — because they were not unprecedented. Violence by legislators, particularly against and during the governor’s address, has a long and complicated history. So does the question of whether the address needs to actually be read out, in person, by the governor. The first time — at least the first time it was recorded — was in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly, when Governor Padmaja Naidu was forced to leave the Assembly in 1965 without delivering her address, due to noisy protests. The speaker, Keshab Chandra Basu, laid a copy of her address on the table instead. In 1966, in Abdul vs WB Legislative Assembly, the Calcutta High Court ruled that “the Constitutional duty of the Governor was substantially performed, although the performance was attended by a good deal of irregularity in procedure. The consequence of non-delivery of the Address by word of mouth was not such as to render the subsequent proceedings inside the Legislative Chamber illegal but merely resulted in procedural irregularity.”

That didn’t stop governors from thinking of “finishing” reading the address as something of a ritual. A year later, in the Rajasthan assembly, Governor Sampurnanand was obstructed from delivering his address on the 26th of February, 1966. He ordered the eviction of 12 legislators from the scene, read the first and last sentences of his address and completed the ritual. That, too, was taken to the Rajasthan High Court, which, in 1967’s Handa vs Rajasthan ruled that since some portions of the Address had been read, it should be treated that the Governor had addressed the House. And it was not long before even the ritual began to be abandoned: Governor Khandubhai Desai, not allowed to address the Andhra Pradesh assembly because of Telengana-related protests in September 1969, chose to not even try, but left a copy on the Table. Such instances have recurred; with the latest such drama, of reading the first and last sentence, by the Governor of UP, T.V. Rajeshwar on the 10th of this month.

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