The petition’s logic was simple: the Constitution fixes a Governor’s term at five years, that term has expired, so a new Governor must be appointed. The Court’s answer was that the same article contains a proviso the petitioner overlooked, one that keeps a Governor in office, notwithstanding the expiry of his term, until a successor takes over. There is, therefore, no vacuum for a court to fill, and no expired term to act upon. The petition, the Court held, was misconceived, and the petitioner had not even disclosed his credentials as a public-spirited litigant.
Jabalpur: The Madhya Pradesh High Court has dismissed a public interest litigation seeking a direction to appoint a new Governor of the State, holding that under the proviso to Article 156(3) of the Constitution, a Governor continues to hold office notwithstanding the expiry of his five-year term until his successor enters upon office, so that no constitutional vacuum in the office is contemplated [Dr. M.A. Khan v. Secretary to the President of India and Others].
A Division Bench of Justice Anand Pathak and Justice B.P. Sharma dismissed the petition as misconceived at the admission stage.
The petition
The petitioner, describing himself as a retired professor of a Jabalpur agricultural university, filed the petition in the nature of public interest litigation seeking a direction to the respondents to appoint the Governor of Madhya Pradesh. His contention, resting on Articles 153, 154, 155, 156 and 160 of the Constitution, was that the incumbent had held the gubernatorial post for more than five years, his term having expired in July 2026, and that a new Governor should therefore be appointed. His counsel went further, submitting that the Governor be removed and that the Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court be made Governor.
For the respondents, the Union of India and the State submitted that a Governor shall continue to hold office until his successor enters upon it, so the petition was premature and not maintainable.
The proviso the petition overlooked
The Court’s answer lay in the text of Article 156 itself. While Clause (3) provides that a Governor shall hold office for a term of five years from the date on which he enters upon office, it is followed by a proviso: that a Governor shall, notwithstanding the expiration of his term, continue to hold office until his successor enters upon his office.
The effect of the words “notwithstanding the expiration of his term”, the Court held, is to exclude all questions, including the five-year limit in Clause (3):
“This is a proviso, which ensures that there shall never be a Constitutional vacuum and the Governor shall continue to hold office until his successor entered upon his office. Therefore, vacuum over Gubernatorial post is not contemplated under Constitution.”
The Court relied on the Supreme Court’s decision in Krishna Ballabh Sahay v. Commission of Inquiry, in which the same argument, that a Governor continuing beyond five years was acting illegally, had been raised and rejected. In that case the Supreme Court had held that the proviso to Article 156(3) contemplates the Governor continuing to hold office notwithstanding the expiration of his term, that there must always be a Governor under Article 153, and that the interregnum is avoided by the proviso, so that a person once appointed Governor continues to hold office until his successor enters upon it, whether that successor is appointed under Article 155 or an arrangement is made under Article 160.
Once the proviso itself explains the term of office in this manner, the Court held, the petitioner’s arguments paled into oblivion and deserved to be rejected.
The bona fides point
The Court also faulted the petition on a threshold requirement for public interest litigation. Under the Madhya Pradesh High Court Rules, 2008, a PIL must disclose the petitioner’s social or public standing, professional status and public-spirited antecedents, the facts constituting the cause, the nature of the injury caused, and the extent of any personal interest. On scrutiny, the Court found that the petitioner had not disclosed his bona fides as a public-spirited citizen as those rules require, though it went on to decide the matter on the merits in any event.
Why it matters
The judgment restates a settled but frequently misunderstood point of constitutional law: the Governor’s five-year term is not a hard stop that vacates the office on its own. The proviso to Article 156(3) is a continuity device, one of several in the Constitution designed to ensure that certain offices are never empty, because the constitutional scheme under Article 153 requires that there always be a Governor for each State. The expiry of the term triggers the search for a successor; it does not create a vacancy that a court can be asked to fill by ordering an appointment.
The relief sought, that the Court direct the appointment of a Governor and, in counsel’s oral escalation, install the Chief Justice of the High Court in the office, also ran into the basic separation of powers. The appointment of a Governor is made by the President under Article 155 and is a matter of the executive’s constitutional judgment; it is not a function a High Court can command by writ, still less by nominating a particular person to the post. That is why the Court treated the petition as misconceived rather than merely premature.
The observation on bona fides is a reminder that public interest litigation carries its own gatekeeping. A petitioner invoking the PIL jurisdiction must show that he comes as a genuine, public-spirited citizen and disclose his standing and interest, precisely so that the extraordinary jurisdiction is not used for publicity or for causes dressed up as public interest. The Court noted the omission but, to its credit, did not rest the dismissal on that technicality alone, deciding the constitutional question on its merits so that the answer is clear. One qualification from the precedent is worth recording: the Supreme Court in Krishna Ballabh Sahay left open that a prolonged neglect to appoint a Governor might, in an appropriate case, raise a different question, but no such facts were pleaded here, and this order does not reach that far.
Case Title: Dr. M.A. Khan v. Secretary to the President of India and Others [Writ Petition No. 32977 of 2026]
Bench: Justice Anand Pathak and Justice B.P. Sharma, High Court of Madhya Pradesh at Jabalpur
Date of Order: September 15, 2026 | Neutral Citation: 2026:MPHC-JBP:72330
Appearances: Advocates Ajay Shankar Raizada and Abhimanyu Singh for the petitioner. Additional Solicitor General Suneel Jain with the Deputy Solicitor General for the Union. Deputy Advocate General Abhijeet Awasthi for the State.
Status: Petition dismissed as misconceived.