SC to hear TN’s plea against Guv today

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on Monday plea of Tamil Nadu government, alleging a delay by the respective State governors in giving assent to Bills passed by the Assembly

A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra is scheduled to hear the plea.

The Tamil Nadu Assembly readopted 10 Bills in a special sitting on Saturday, days after those were returned by Governor RN Ravi. The Bills, covering different departments, including law, agriculture, and higher education, were passed in the wake of Ravi returning them on November 13. The readopted Bills were later sent to the Governor for his assent.

On November 10, describing the alleged delay by the Tamil Nadu Governor in giving assent to the Bills as a “matter of serious concern”, the top court sought the Centre’s response on the State government’s petition accusing the Raj Bhawan of “sitting over” 12 legislations.

Issuing notice to the Centre, the top court had sought the assistance of the attorney general or solicitor general in resolving the issue. “The issues which have been raised in the writ petition raise a matter of serious concern. From the tabulated statements that have been submitted before this court, it appears that as many as 12 bills that have been submitted to the Governor under Article 200 have not elicited any further action.

“Other matters, such as proposals for the grant of sanction for prosecution, proposals for the premature release of prisoners and for the appointment of the members of the Public Service Commission, are pending,” it had said. The bench headed by CJI Chandrachud had said, “Bearing in mind the situation, we issue notice to the second respondent, namely, the Union of India represented by the secretary to the government in the Ministry of Home Affairs. We request the Attorney General of India or, in his absence, the Solicitor General of India to assist the court.”

The Tamil Nadu government has urged the top court to intervene in the matter, alleging that “a constitutional authority” is consistently acting in an “unconstitutional manner, impeding and obstructing” the functioning of the state government for “extraneous reasons”.

“Declare that the inaction, omission, delay, and failure to comply with the constitutional mandate by the governor of Tamil Nadu/first respondent qua the consideration and assent of the Bills passed and forwarded by the Tamil Nadu state legislature to him and the non-consideration of files, government orders and policies forwarded by the state government for his signature is unconstitutional, illegal, arbitrary, unreasonable, besides mala-fide exercise of power,” the petition says.

The governor, by “not signing remission orders, day-to-day files, appointment orders, approving recruitment orders, granting approval to prosecute ministers, MLAs involved in corruption, including transfer of investigation to the CBI by the Supreme Court, bills passed by the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly is bringing the entire administration to a grinding halt and creating adversarial attitude by not cooperating with the state administration,” it says.