NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to the Centre and Additional Chief Secretary to the respective Governors and asked them to file a detailed reply within three weeks after hearing a plea filed by Kerala and West Bengal governments challenging the Governors' decisions to keep several bills pending for months, either refusing to assent them or reserving them for President's consideration.
A three-judge bench of the apex court, led by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, issued notice to the Centre, Kerala and West Bengal State Governors through their respective offices, Additional Chief Secretaries, within three weeks.
"Let the reply be filed in three weeks and also a joint note be submitted from the states," the CJI said.
During the hearing, former Attorney General (AG) and senior lawyer, KK Venugopal, appearing for the Kerala State, pleaded to the apex court that there was a need for the Court to lay down guidelines on this issue pertaining to when the Governors can return or refer bills.
"This is confusion in the minds of various Governors in the country as to what their powers are in regard to assenting to bills. In the present (Kerala) case, out of eight bills, two of them had been kept pending for 23 months, one for 15 months, another for 13 months, and others for 10 months. It is a very sad state of affairs. This is a confusion among the Governors that they keep bills pending. This is against the constitution," the senior lawyer told the apex court.
Venugopal further said that this court should tell the Governor as to when they can refuse to assent and when they can refer to the President.
For the West Bengal government, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi said that every time the court hears it some bills are cleared and the same happened during the Tamil Nadu case as well.
In its petition filed under Article 32 of the Constitution before the top court, the Kerala government challenged the action and reconsideration of President Droupadi Murmu in withholding assent for four out of the seven bills referred by the Kerala Governor.
The Kerala government also challenged the Governor's action of referring the bills to the President, arguing that none of the bills related to Centre-State relations required the Presidential assent.