Kerala Govt Approaches Supreme Court Challenging HC Judgment Refusing To Fix Timeline For Governor's Assent To Bills

In the order passed in November 2022, the High Court had observed that it cannot fix a time limit for the Governor to give assent to bills. 

“..even under a parliamentary democracy, when the Hon'ble Governor is left with discretion under Article 200 of the Constitution of India, it may not be appropriate for the Courts to issue any direction to the Governor of a State to exercise the discretion within a time frame to be fixed by the Court” the High Court had said. 

A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice S. Manikumar and Justice Shaji P. Chaly of the Kerala HC had passed the order which has been challenged before the Top Court.

Notably, last week, the Government of Kerala had approached the Supreme Court with a writ petition filed under Article 32, stating that the Governor, is delaying the consideration of bills that the State Assembly has passed. The State Government has contended that the Governor has failed in his constitutional duties by causing unreasonable delay in considering over 8 pending bills. 

The Special Leave Petition challenging the High Court's judgment has been filed alleging that many bills of immense public interest have been withheld by the Governor, which is resulting in deprivation of welfare measures to the people of the State. “The conduct of the Governor, as would presently be demonstrated, threatens to defeat and subvert the very fundamentals and basic foundations of our Constitution, including the rule of law and democratic good governance, apart from defeating the rights of the people of the State to the welfare measures sought to be implemented through the Bills,” the SLP states. 

"The words “as soon as possible” in the main proviso to Art. 200 necessarily means that not only should pending bills be disposed of within a reasonable time, but further that these Bills have to be dealt with urgently and expeditiously without any avoidable delay," the state has argued in its petition. 

The State has pointed out that there has been no action on as many as 8 Bills passed by the State Legislature and presented to the Governor for his assent under Article 200 of the Constitution. Three bills have been pending with the Governor for more than two years, and three other bills have been pending for over a year, the State has told the Apex Court. 

The State has sought for a direction to the Governor to exercise his powers under Article 200 of the Constitution with respect to each of the Bills pending before him. 

On Monday, while considering a similar petition filed by the State of Punjab, a bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud said that the Governors cannot sit over bills indefinitely. The bench agreed to consider the petition filed by Kerala and a similar petition filed by Tamil Nadu, along with Punjab's case on coming Friday.