Tamil Nadu: Governor just figurehead; Supreme Court asks if bills can be delayed indefinitely

NEW DELHI: Can a governor keep a bill passed by the assembly pending indefinitely to frustrate the will of the people exercised through the legislature? Supreme Court raised the question - its refrain through the hearings on presidential reference over the court's decision to fix timelines for governors and the President to take calls on bills - again at the end of arguments from the Centre and NDA-led states canvassing wide discretionary powers for the state executive head.

Leading the arguments on behalf of opposition-governed states that are diametrically opposite to those advanced by the Centre, senior advocate A M Singhvi, on behalf of Tamil Nadu, told the bench that a governor is merely an ornamental head of the state and bound by the aid and advice of the council of ministers headed by the chief minister on every option to be exercised by him with regard to a bill.

A bench of Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justices Surya Kant, Vikram Nath, P S Narsimha and A S Chandurkar said, "The Constituent Assembly deleted the six-week timeline for a governor to take a decision on a bill and replaced it with 'as soon as possible'. Does it not mean at the earliest and not later than six weeks? As the framers of the Constitution expected a governor to act expeditiously, can SC not examine if a governor indefinitely sits over a bill passed by assembly to frustrate law-making?"

This question came from the bench when solicitor general Tushar Mehta argued that a state govt is precluded from invoking Article 32 to seek a writ against a governor, who as per the Constitution is not answerable to a court for the decisions he takes while holding the constitutional post.

Singhvi said a governor has no discretionary power to negate a bill passed by an assembly. Making a governor's decisions non-justiciable would make him, not the will of the people through an assembly, the supreme law-making authority as he can scotch a validly passed bill null and void by simply consigning it to his cupboard and forgetting about it, he said.

The bench said if a governor finds a bill to be repugnant to central law, he had the option of reserving it for the President's consideration.

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