Withheld bills: Supreme Court questions Tamil Nadu governor
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New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday asked why Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi kept bills pending for three years before declaring that he would withhold assent and refer some of them to the President. Justice JB Pardiwala said that the governor appeared to have “adopted his own procedure” to decide on the bills, Live Law reported.
The court of Justices Pardiwala and R Mahadevan was hearing two writ petitions filed by the Tamil Nadu government accusing the governor of obstructing the Legislative Assembly by withholding assent to 10 bills passed between 2020 and 2023.
The court wondered what the governor found so gross in the bills that it took him three years to find.
It was on November 18, 2023, that the 10 enacted bills were sent to the President. The bills were mostly related to higher education and included provisions to remove the governor as the chancellor of state universities. When the President approved one, they rejected seven and left two unaddressed.
The constitutional provision deals with the governor’s powers to give or withhold assent to bills passed by the state legislature.
The court noted that the governor, by merely declaring that he would withhold assent and not returning the bills to the Assembly, would frustrate Article 200 of the Constitution, according to the Bar and Bench.
The court demanded Attorney General R Venkataramani, representing Ravi, to show factually why the governor withheld assent to the bills.
Justice Pardiwala said, “Either the Attorney show the court some original files or some other document, soe contemporaneous record available with the office of the governor as to what has looked into, what was discussed, what were the lacunae,” Live Law quoted.
The judge pointed out that Ravi’s declaration about withholding the assent to the bills came shortly after the Supreme Court ruled in a separate case pertaining to Punjab that governors could not veto the Assembly by delaying decisions on bills.