The Supreme Court's constitutional bench has given its verdict regarding the Governor and the President taking decisions about the bills passed by state governments through the legislature. A five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice B.R. Gavai has found that the earlier order by the Supreme Court's two-judge bench, which had set a three-month timeline for deciding the bills, is not constitutional. The court, which invalidated the part of the earlier ruling that bills not decided within the specified time limit could be deemed as passed, also criticised such interventions as tantamount to usurping the powers of the Governor and the President. At the same time, the court expresses displeasure with the trend of delaying bills by sitting on them and has issued a warning about it. Simply put, the ongoing government-governor standoff in opposition states, including Kerala, over the decision-making on bills is likely to continue. When governors unnecessarily stalled bills in a manner that even pushed the day-to-day functioning of state governments into uncertainty, the matter was forced into legal proceedings. But now one can't help saying that the intervention of the constitutional bench has only made the issue more complicated.
Governors’ rule has been a weapon that the Narendra Modi government has been using since its first day to bring down ‘opposition states’ that have refused to yield to the central government’s demands. Opposition-ruled states have on many occasions witnessed the tendency of governors to unnecessarily interfere in the administrative process of state governments. When Arif Mohammad Khan was the Governor of Kerala, several of his interventions even led to a governance crisis. Governor’s rule has been visible in a similar manner in Tamil Nadu, Punjab, West Bengal, Telangana, Karnataka and, during the Uddhav Thackeray administration in Maharashtra. Many states have also approached the Supreme Court against this. Among them, the extraordinary ruling of the Supreme Court bench comprising Justices J. B. Pardiwala and R. Madhavan came on last April 8 in a plea that challenged the indefinite withholding of 10 bills passed by the Tamil Nadu government by Governor R. N. Ravi without taking any decision. Reminding the Governor that he could not delay the passing of the bills, the Supreme Court bench ordered an immediate decision on the matter. It also set a three-month deadline for making a decision on the bills; the ruling also stated that if the bill was delayed beyond that period, it would be deemed as passed. The ruling, which reminded parties of the importance of federalism, came at a time when the Supreme Court was considering the cases of Kerala, Punjab and Telangana on similar issues. Everyone naturally expected that if such a ruling were delivered, the Governor or his office would file a review petition. If that were to be rejected, then a curative petition would also be a possibility. But none of these happened. Instead, the President directly intervened in the matter by exercising her special powers. Article 143(1) of the Constitution states that the President can seek the opinion of the Supreme Court on all matters of public importance and legal matters. Invoking the provisions existing under this, the President issued a reference raising 14 questions against the Supreme Court’s ruling concerning the Governor’s inaction. This is how the matter reached the Supreme Court's administrative bench. The Chief Justice and the bench, who approached the constitutional provisions only technically, quickly brought the matter to a conclusion.
Even if it is argued that the Supreme Court's initial ruling, which set a time limit for the passing of the bills, is not technically in line with the law, no one can deny its background and some of the observations made in the legislative proposal. It should be remembered that Tamil Nadu went to court when the bills passed as early as in 2020 were delayed without taking a decision. This means that the Governor was deliberately stalling the administrative processes of the states. That is where the court intervened. Although the Governor is constitutionally the ‘head’ of the state legislature, the court made it clear that the policies and programmes of the government must be articulated and implemented by the elected representatives of the people, and through that ruling it questioned the legitimacy of delaying bills. In other words, the court then did not view the matter solely through legal lens; it relied on constitutional values. However, when the matter reached the constitutional bench, those values were forgotten. The laws were interpreted only through their letter and rules. The court has made a decision on a crucial issue. However, the issues remain, which are of a kind that will lead to uncertainty