Any step taken which might disturb this atmosphere in the Punjab and weaken the administration would be most unfortunate and harmful. “Fortunately the Punjab, under Sardar Partap Singh Kairon’s leadership, has played a very important part in this emergency and has provided both men and resources in a very considerable degree. The conditions in the Punjab are therefore of very special importance and nothing should be done which adversely affects the situation there and weakens India’s position in this emergency. While this has been so ever since independence, it is very much more so since the emergency that has arisen because of the Chinese invasion. The Punjab is a border province especially affected by developments with our neighbour countries. “For me, as for others, public interest must be the dominant consideration. He wrote a large note to the president on Oct 25, 1963, reluctantly agreeing to a probe against the Punjab chief minister: In India, prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru liked ‘strong men’ around him, so long as they kept the opposition at bay - Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed to keep Shaikh Mohammed Abdullah in indefinite detention under a false trial Sardar Partap Singh Kairon to keep his Akalis in Punjab under control, and others. The highest point was reached in 1954 in the Crichel Down affair when the minister Sir Thomas Dugdale resigned over mistakes by a civil servant. Unless the circumstances of the case show that a minister by some positive act or deliberate omission has abetted the commission of that impropriety by the civil servant. It does not, however, follow from that that a minister would also be held guilty of impropriety in the sense of moral turpitude or deviation from the path of rectitude because of an act of impropriety on the part on the part of the departmental official. In extreme cases, a minister has resigned because of the lapse of his departmental official. To quote Lord Morrison, “The proper answer of the minister is that, if the House wants anybody’s head it must be his head as the responsible minister…. Once under a cloud, a minister must resign. Within a department there must be substantial delegation of power, but the most essential characteristic of the civil service is the responsibility of the minister for every act done in his department”. Jennings’ second proposition is that “a minister cannot hide behind the error of a subordinate. Once under a cloud the minister, especially the prime minister, must go. It is, however, necessary not only that he should possess this qualification but also that he should appear to possess it.” The benefit of the doubt does not go to him. One, “The most elementary qualification demanded of a minister is honesty and incorruptibility. In his classic Cabinet Government, Sir Ivor Jennings laid down two propositions. That said, it would be cynical to leave an important question to the vicissitudes of the politics of the day. As the leader of the opposition pointed out, Boris Johnson had lied to the House of Commons and to the nation at large. An election now will send the Tories into the wilderness.īy objective standards of public morality, Boris Johnson ought to have resigned. Right now there is no alternative leader in sight. Therein lies the heart of the matter - the prime minister will resign when his party begins to feel that his continuance will spell doom in the next general election. The Conservatives feel he is more of a liability than an asset. BRITISH Prime Minister Boris Johnson did no more in the House of Commons last month than to pull off a reprieve.
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