New Delhi, March 25 The state of Kerala on Tuesday urged the Supreme Court to expeditiously decide its plea filed against "inaction" on the part of Governor in giving assent to the bills passed by the Assembly.
Appearing on behalf of the Kerala government, senior advocate K.K. Venugopal apprised a bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna that after a period of over 15 months, the office of the President on Monday communicated the rejection of two bills.
At this, CJI Khanna, in view of his retirement in May this year, said that the matter should be listed before a different Bench.
"Please move the mentioning slip. I will mark it to some other Bench given the timelines," the CJI said.
In response, Venugopal urged Kerala’s plea to be listed before a bench presided over by Justice J.B. Pardiwala since that bench had reserved its verdict on a similar case filed by the Tamil Nadu government, claiming that the Governor has positioned himself as a "political rival" to the legitimately elected state government.
"We will just see," CJI Khanna said.
The petition filed by the Tamil Nadu government posed a legal question that when the Governor returns a Bill after withholding his assent and the said bill is passed again, with or without amendments, and is presented for his assent, whether the Governor has to necessarily accord his approval or could he reserve the Bill for the consideration of the President.
In the case of Kerala, seven bills were referred to President Droupadi Murmu by then Governor Arif Mohammed Khan, post their re-adoption in a special Assembly session. 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.
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