Uttrakhand Governor Aziz Qureshi shunted to Mizoram

Uttrakhand Governor Aziz Qureshi, who had taken the Modi government to Supreme Court for alleged attempts to ease him out of office, was on Tuesday shifted to Mizoram.

A Presidential communique said that Qureshi has been transferred and appointed as Governor of Mizoram for the remainder of his term till May 2017 and Meghalaya Governor K K Paul will take his place.

Paul, who was appointed as Governor of Meghalaya on July 8, 2013, will continue to hold additional charge of Governor of Manipur till further orders, it said.

Qureshi, who was among the Governors appointed by the UPA government and was told by Home Secretary Anil Goswami to quit after change in government, approached the Supreme Court against attempts to ease him out.

In his petition, Qureshi had said that after the NDA government came to power, Goswami had called him on July 30 and asked him to tender his resignation and made it clear that he will be removed from office if he does not step down.

He alleged, in his petition, that Goswami again called him on August 8 insisting that he resign.

Goswami had said in his reply to the Supreme Court that he had, with authority and justification, "suggested" to Qureshi that he should consider resigning on his own since his actions were not "behoving the status of the Governor" and showed the constitutional office in "very poor light" apart from "bringing it into disrespect".

In another decision, West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi has been asked to discharge the functions of the Governor of Meghalaya, in addition to his own duties, till further orders.

After the new government took over, many governors appointed by the previous UPA regime were eased out which included sacking of Mizoram governor Kamla Beniwal, 87, who had served in Gujarat earlier and had a running battle with Narendra Modi when he was the state's chief minister.

Virendra Kataria, a former Congress leader, was also sacked as Puducherry lieutenant governor.

Four other governors -- MK Narayanan (West Bengal), Ashwani Kumar (Nagaland), BL Joshi (UP), Shekhar Dutt (Chhattisgarh) and B V Wanchoo (Goa) had put in their papers apparently after they were telephoned by the Union home secretary.