Union Vs Centre Debate

Why in News?

• Since the Tamil Nadu government shunned the usage of the term ‘Central government’ in its official communications by replacing it with ‘Union government’, it has recently erupted the Union Vs Centre Debate.

Highlights

• There is no mention of the term ‘Central government’ in the Constitution of India because the Constituent Assembly did not use the term ‘Centre’ or ‘Central government’ in all of its 395 Articles in 22 Parts and eight Schedules in the original Constitution.
• There are only references of the ‘Union’ and the ‘States’ with the executive powers of the Union wielded by the President acting on the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers headed by the Prime Minister.
• Even though there is no reference to the ‘Central government’ in the Constitution, the General Clauses Act, 1897 gives a definition for it.
• The ‘Central government’ for all practical purposes is the President after the commencement of the Constitution.
• Article 1(1) of the Constitution of India says “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.”
• On 13th December, 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru introduced the aims and objectives of the Constituent Assembly by resolving that India shall be a Union of territories willing to join the “Independent Sovereign Republic”.
• The emphasis was on the consolidation and confluence of various provinces and territories to form a strong united country.
• While submitting the draft Constitution in 1948, Dr B R Ambedkar, chairman of the drafting committee, had said that the committee had used the word ‘Union’ because:
• (a) the Indian federation was not the result of an agreement by the units, and
• (b) the component units had no freedom to secede from the federation.
• The members of the Constituent Assembly were very cautious of not using the word ‘Centre’ or ‘Central government’ in the Constitution as they intended to keep away the tendency of centralizing of powers in one unit.