BENGALURU: Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot on Wednesday refused to reconsider his decision of reserving the Karnataka Transparency in Public Procurements (Amendment) Bill, 2025, for the consideration of the President of India to invoke the Article 143 of the Constitution.
Following the government’s resubmission, as he had returned the Bill twice, on May 22 he clarified that he already reserved the bill for the ‘kind consideration’ of the President.
The Governor cited the Supreme Court observation in the State of Tamil Nadu Vs Governor of Tamil Nadu. “This is all the more necessary as there is no mechanism at the State level for the Governor to refer bills to the constitutional courts for their advice or opinion thereupon. Under the scheme of the Constitution as we see it, there is only one possible way for the Governor to ascertain the palpable constitutionality of a bill, which is by way of reserving it for the consideration of the President who in turn is then expected to invoke Article 143.”
He stated that in providing 4 per cent reservation for Category-lI(B), as per the Bill, there is a high chance that it might be construed as reservation based on the religion, even though earlier, it is considered as Backward Class, inturn which may lead to more legal complications.
“In this scenario I am of the opinion that instead of giving assent to the proposed Bill, I would deem fit to reserve this Bill for the kind consideration of the President to avoid more constitutional complications, since it involves Constitutional restrictions”, he said.
He said that he has gone through the resubmission of the State Government as it has referred to the observations of the Supreme Court in respect to the reservation of Bills by the Governor.
In the proposed amendment, reservation of 4 per cent in tenders up to the value of 2 crore in Government construction works for the Backward Class category II (B). It is to be noted that only Muslim community was included in Category-II(B) and it has been Considered as Backward Class. Whereas, Category-l consists of 95 castes, Category-IlA consists of 102 castes, Category-IIl(A) consists of 3 castes and Category-lll(B) consists of 6 castes (including their sub castes). Out of all these Categories only Category-lI(B) consists of only one caste-Muslim, he pointed out.
Hence, as per the proposed amendment providing 4 per cent reservation to the Backward Class Category -lI(B), which includes only Muslim may be construed as reservation for the religious community based on religion, he added.
The Supreme Court emphasised that Articles 15 and 16 prohibit reservations on the basis of religion and any affirmative action must be rather based on the socio-economic factors. The Constitution of India does not permit reservation based on religion, as it violates the principles of equality (Article 14), non-discrimination (Article 15) and equal opportunity in public employment (Article 16), he elaborated.