The Supreme Court on Friday suggested to the Kerala Governor to go through the judgment delivered by the apex court in the Punjab Governor’s case.
“Our order in the Punjab matter was uploaded last night. Ask the Governor’s Secretary to look into the order,” a bench, headed by CJI D.Y. Chandrachud, told Attorney General R. Venkataramani.
The bench, also comprising Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, was hearing a plea filed by the state of Kerala against “inaction” on the part of Governor Arif Mohammed Khan in giving assent to the bills passed by the state legislature.
It decided to take up the matter for further hearing on November 29 as it could not take up the matter for detailed hearing on Friday due to paucity of time.
In a very short hearing, senior advocate K. K. Venugopal, representing the Kerala government, told the apex court that the Chief Minister has met the Governor various times on the issue.
“All the Ministers have met him (Governor). The Chief Minister has met him many times,” he said.
On November 20, the top court had issued notice and sought the response of the Union government and Additional Chief Secretary to the Governor.
Venugopal had said that Governors should realise that they are a part of the state legislature under Article 168 of the Constitution. He had said that as many as 8 bills are pending for assent with Governor Khan for a period ranging between 7-23 months, adding that the Governor also continues to sit on three bills which were earlier promulgated as ordinances under his signature.
According to the plea filed by the Kerala government, as many as eight bills were presented to the Governor for his assent and of these, “three have been pending with the Governor for more than two years, and three more in excess of a full year”.
The plea said that by keeping bills presented to him pending for such long periods, the Governor is directly violating the provision of the Constitution, namely, that the bill should be dealt with “as soon as possible”. The writ petition said that the words “as soon as possible” occurring in Article 200 of the Constitution necessarily mean that not only should pending bills be disposed of within a reasonable time, but that these Bills have to be dealt with urgently and expeditiously without any avoidable delay.
It added that the Governor’s alleged inaction defeats the rights of the people of the state to the welfare measures sought to be implemented through the bills. “The conduct of the Governor, as would presently be demonstrated, threatens to defeat and subvert the very fundamentals and basic foundations of our Constitution, including the rule of law and democratic good governance,” the plea said.
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