Karnataka adopts state flag in historic decision

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Thursday announced that his government had taken the "historic decision” to adopt a Karnataka State Flag. The Chief Minister thanked Kannada organisations, leading Kannada writers and intellectuals for agreeing with the design of the yellow, white and red flag. Siddaramaiah said the state government would now write to the central government to make the State Flag official. “A long cherished dream is coming true,” he added.

The Karnataka government had formed a committee last July to consider the demand of some activists for an official state flag.

Mostly, legal experts hold that there is no constitutional bar for states to have their own flags. Karnataka’s former advocate general Ravi Verma Kumar has said: “the Constitution provides for states’ supremacy in their own sphere and even a seven-judge Supreme Court bench has upheld this. The flag code also has no restrictions on the matter.”

Legal experts say that if the Karnataka government goes ahead with the decision of a state flag, then it would not trespass the constitutional Lakshman rekha so long as the Centre does not come up with a legislation prohibiting the states from creating their own flags.

Of course, in such an eventuality, the legal tenability of the decision of both the Union and the state would be subject to judicial review by the Supreme Court of India.