Supreme Court to examine when Governor can send bills to President after KK Venugopal flags Kerala Governor's decision

The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that it will consider laying down guidelines on when a Governor of a State can send bills passed by the State legislature to the President [State of Kerala and anr vs Hon'ble Governor for State of Kerala and ors]..This was after Senior Counsel and former Attorney General KK Venugopal highlighted that Kerala Governor Arif Mohammad Khan had forwarded seven bills passed by State legislature to the President. The Court took strong exception to the Kerala Governor sitting on eight bills passed by the Kerala State legislature for two years without clearing the same.The Court said that it will do its Constitutional duty and lay down the law if such deadlock continues in the State.The top court was hearing a plea by Kerala government against Governor Arif Mohd Khan over the delay in assent to bills passed by the State Legislative Assembly..The hearing before the top court today witnessed many interesting twists and turns as the Court was initially not inclined to lay down guidelines on when a Governor of a State can send bills to the President, since the same was not part of the prayers made in the petition. "The prayer for guidelines will not strictly arise in the frame of petitions as it stands now," the Court initially said in its order.However, a bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud with Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra later gave liberty to the Kerala government to amend its plea and seek directions for guidelines on when Governor can refer bills to President.Venugopal submitted that the Kerala Governor had sent seven of the eight bills before him to the President though the said bills were not in conflict with any central law.He also pointed out that eight new bills have been sent to the Governor for his assent."The Governor instead of working with the assembly he is acting as an adversary," Venugopal said."There is some substance in what is being argued. What was the Governor doing for two years by sitting on the bills," the Court demanded.Attorney General R Venkatramani said that he did not wish to argue on the same."I do not wish to go into this as it will open up a lot of things," said the AG."We will get into it very much... There is accountability by the Governor and it is about our accountability to the constitution and the people ask us about it," the Court said.The Court, therefore, allowed the State of Kerala to amend its plea to seek guidelines to be laid down by the Court for Governor to send bills passed by the State to the President."We have to keep the matter pending. We thought of disposing the plea.. but it will not be proper. Because then how they file another plea seeking just guidelines. This is a live issue. We have eight live bills and if we dispose this bill then we will do disservice to the petition. Let them amend the petition," the Court stated..The Court, however, refused to interfere with the action of the Kerala Governor Arif Mohammad Khan to send seven bills passed earlier by the State legislature to the President. The Court said that the with the Governor forwarding the bill to the President, the Constitutional requirement under Article 200 as regards granting assent to bills stood satisfied."It was only after this plea that Governor reserved seven bills for president assent and cleared one. The fact of the matter is Governor has albeit after this petition exercised his constitutional power by granting assent to 1 and reserved seven for the president. Now Article 200 requirements stands met," the Court said in its order. .The Supreme Court had earlier told the Kerala Governor to read the top court's recent judgment on the limits of the Governor's powers to when it comes to dealing with bills passed by State Legislature In that judgment, the bench had stressed that a Governor is only a symbolic head of a State, and cannot thwart the lawmaking powers of legislatures.Subsequently, the Governor cleared one bill while seven were referred to the President. During the hearing today, Venugopal informed the Court that out of eight bills sent to the Governor for his assent, only one was cleared while the remaining seven were sent to the President of India for her consideration.He argued that this was in violation of Article 200 of the Constitution "Now seven out of eight bills sent for Presidential assent. This is just to delay the case. He can do so only if there is an inconsistency with a central law. He cannot blindly take the seven bills and send to president. There are eight other bills pending before him and it was passed in September and he is sitting on it," Venugopal said.He urged the Court to lay down guidelines on when a Governor can send a bill to the President."Time has come today that this court should lay down some guidelines as to when the bills can be reserved for the presidential assent and unless this is laid down the state is suffering. A bill cannot be kept pending for two years like this. This seems adversarial. Unless this court steps in strongly the people will suffer," Venugopal argued.The Court said initially said that it will not get into the same since the scope of the petition was limited.However, the bench did find merit in the argument that the Governor sat on the bills for two years."We find no reason as to why the Governor decided to keep the bills pending for an inordinate period of time. We have held that power of Governor cannot be utilised contrary to the power entrusted on the democratically elected state legislature," the Court noted.The Court also hoped that better sense would prevail among the political opponents in the State."Let us hope that some political sagacity take over the State and we hope some sagacity prevails. Otherwise we are here to lay down the law and do our duty under the Constitution," the CJI remarked."We do not want to get into all of this. There is a lot happening in the State," the AG said.However, Venugopal sprung to defence of Kerala, his home State."He is making a lot of insinuating statements.. State of kerala is functioning beautifully in education, infrastructure, health care.. these are serious statements," he said.Several pleas have been moved by State governments against Governors in recent times before the top court.The DMK-led Tamil Nadu government has filed a similar plea against Governor RN Ravi for allegedly withholding his assent on around 12 bills passed by the State Legislative Assembly.The State of Telangana had also moved the apex court earlier seeking directions to the State's Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan to give her assent to ten key bills passed by the State legislature.