NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin and the Governor of Tamil Nadu, R N Ravi, to have an open dialogue and discuss all the relevant and pertaining issues to amicably settle the deadlock with respect to passing of the bills.
The three-judge bench of the Top Court, headed by the CJI Dr D Y Chandrachud said this while hearing a writ petition filed by the State of Tamil Nadu against the Governor's delay in granting assent to the bills passed by the legislative assembly.
The matter now would be taken up for hearing in the month of January 3rd week, next year.
Senior advocate Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for the State govt, argued that the issue is purely a constitutional one as can the Governor send the bills to the President once it has been resent to him by the Assembly?
He thereby said that this court should hear the matter in detail. "The matter should be heard by the SC in January next year," Dr Singhvi pleaded to the SC, to which, it allowed his plea.
In a lighter vein, Dr Singhvi said that this is not an issue that can be solved through tea or stiffer beverages.
To this, the CJI said, we will keep it in January next year. The CM is also willing to meet the Governor. Let it happen.
The SC had earlier in its last hearing asked Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi to convene a meeting with the state Chief Minister MK Stalin and discuss and try to resolve the issue over the non-grant of assent to Bills passed by the state legislative Assembly.
The top court was hearing the Tamil Nadu government's plea alleging delay by Governor Mr Ravi in granting assent to bills.
In the petition, the TN Government has sought to direct the Governor to dispose of all the Bills, files, and Government orders forwarded by the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly and Government which are pending with his office within a specified timeframe.
The petition sought to declare that the inaction, omission, delay and failure to comply with the constitutional mandate by the Governor of Tamil Nad is an illegal, arbitrary, unconstitutional, unreasonable besides malafide exercise of power.
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 CBI by Supreme Court, Bills passed by Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly" is bringing the entire administration to a grinding halt and creating adversarial attitude by not cooperating with the State administration, TN govt said.
"The refusal to act on the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers or deliberate inaction in acting on the Bills or on the files on the part of the Governor including any delay, will defeat the parliamentary democracy and the will of the people and consequently violates the basic structure of the Constitution," the petition said.
TN Govt said that the Governor's inactions have caused a constitutional deadlock between the Constitutional Head of the State and the Elected Government of the State and that by not acting upon their Constitutional functions, the Governor is toying away with the citizen's mandate, the state government said.
Hence, the state government has sought to issue appropriate directions laying down guidelines stipulating the outer time limit for the State Governor to consider Bills passed by the Legislature.