Exasperated by the interminable delay on the part of Tamil Nadu governor R N Ravi in processing bills sent for his assent after being passed by the assembly, one as far back as January 2020, the Supreme Court on Monday said, “After we passed the order, the governor took action. What was the governor doing for three years?”
A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra was irked by the fact that the governor, after the court’s November 10 order frowning upon the delay, cleared some long-pending bills on November 13. However, attorney general R Venkataramani’s submission cooled down the proceedings.
Venkataramani placed the list of 181 bills sent to the governor since January 13, 2020 and told the court that 151 of them had been cleared. The AG said the government had withdrawn five bills and the governor had reserved nine bills for the President’s consideration. The AG said the governor had withheld assent to 10 bills, while five more, sent to him in October, were in the process of consideration.
“All the 12 bills mentioned in the writ petition (filed by the TN government) were disposed of on November 13. Out of these, assent is withheld in 10 bills and two bills have been reserved for consideration of the President. As on November 16, only five bills, which have been received in October, are under consideration,” he added.
The Tamil Nadu assembly, through a special session on November 18, re-passed the 10 bills to which the governor had withheld assent, and sent these back for clearance. As per Article 200, once the governor returns a bill to the assembly and the latter re-approves it, the governor has no discretion but to give assent to it.
SC pulls up Kerala governor
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court gave the Union government and the Kerala governor Arif Mohammad Khan four days to respond to a petition by the Pinarayi Vijayan government accusing the governor of being deliberately inactive on giving assent to eight bills passed by the assembly.
The bench headed by CJI entertained the petition and asked the governor’s office and the Union government to respond to the Kerala government’s petition by Friday, when it will be taken up for further hearing.
Appearing for the Kerala government, senior advocate K K Venugopal told the SC that of the eight bills, three were earlier promulgated as ordinances by the governor before these being converted to bills and passed by the assembly. “Now, he has been sitting over them for the last three years,” he said.
On closer scrutiny, the court found these eight bills have been pending the governor’s assent for the last 7 to 23 months. Interestingly, the Kerala government has also challenged a high court order disposing of its 2022 petition seeking a declaration that the governor’s inaction on pending bills was arbitrary and unconstitutional.