Why The Guvs Were Off & How The Game Got Changed

medium120100534A Supreme Court bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan gave a pivotal judgment yesterday in State of Tamil Nadu vs The Governor of Tamil Nadu — a governor cannot have absolute veto or ‘pocket veto’ (to indefinitely sit) on bills sent to him by the state legislature. SC declared 10 pending bills passed by TN legislature as deemed to have been approved by the governor. It importantly set a timeline for action on all future bills, a provision not included under Article 200 of the Constitution.Both TN state govt and its governor have been at loggerheads over delays in the latter’s assent to bills passed by assembly, pending since as far back as 2020. Since most bills involved curtailing governor’s writ as chancellor of state universities and cutting back on overall powers, the delay in assent was not just seen to be in poor taste but also led to grave administrative stalemate.A popular theory that gained credence given the delays is that the governor was actively attempting to stall the legislative process, unbecoming of his high office. That he was trying to impede smooth functioning of a democratically-elected govt.Not just TN, other states like Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Bengal and Kerala too found themselves at a similar impasse with their governors. Even Puducherry was at odds with its LG. Governors of Telangana, Punjab and Kerala have also landed in court for their failure to clear pending bills.The Constitution in Article 153 provides for a governor in every state. Executive powers are vested in governor’s office under Article 154 — his function and power are circumscribed by the Constitution. Article 163(1) implies that the governor is bound to act on the aid and advice of his council of ministers.It’s evident that even the ‘discretion’ conferred on the governor to exercise his functions is limited to the extent that the Constitution contemplates.Though the constitutional scheme warrants assent of governor or President, as the case may be, for a bill to become law of the land, Supreme Court had settled the position in 1974 in Shamsher Singh vs State of Punjab, ruling that the governor is just a constitutional head and the state’s executive powers are actually exercised by the council of ministers.Per Article 200, all bills passed by a legislature require governor’s nod, who has four options: grant assent, withhold assent, reserve the bill for President’s consideration or return the bill to the legislature for reconsideration. This particular Article has been modelled on Section 75 of Government of India Act, 1935, and set no time limit for exercising any one of the four options.Perhaps, framers of our Constitution earnestly imagined that men of calibre and statesmanship alone would occupy the office of governor, and would abide by its spirit, and not be partisan. However, in the current political climate, when there’s a strong belief that ideological loyalists occupy gubernatorial offices, the notion that the governor is apolitical is debatable. Most of their actions result in constitutional deadlocks that threaten to stifle legislative functions.Sarkaria Commission (1987), National Commission to Review Working of the Constitution headed by Justice Venkatachaliah (2002) and Justice MM Punchhi Commission (2010) all recommended fixing a maximum time limit for governors to decide on a bill.The Karnataka law commission’s Twenty-Second Report exclusively dealt with ‘Assent to Bills – Problems of Delay (Articles 200 & 201 of the Constitution of India)’, chaired by Justice VS Malimath. It categorically stated that “it would indeed be anomalous and paradoxical if more time is taken by the head of state to assent to a bill than for a legislature to pass it. It is well settled that every state action has to be reasonable. The reasonable exercise of power inheres its exercise with a reasonable time. Not doing so will be unreasonable.”Refusal to grant assent to bills in countries like UK, Canada or Australia is considered abominable to their governance. It is time for India to follow the example.It is against this backdrop that SC’s judgment on governor Ravi reinforces trust in constitutional values. SC has made it clear that in the democratic scheme of things, there can be no room for governors to pursue ‘politics of confrontation’ by projecting themselves as ‘constitutional monarchs’. In a parliamentary democracy, elected representatives serve people, not titular heads. India’s Constitution deserves to be interpreted such that it doesn’t whittle down the powers of the state legislature, and preserves federalism. SC on Tuesday did just that.The writer is an advocate in Madras High Court