States increasingly moving Supreme Court over political issues: Attorney General R Venkataramani

State governments are increasingly moving Supreme Court over political debates and such legal disputes over political issues between States and the Central governments now occupy constitutional courts more than ever, Attorney General (AG) for India R Venkataramani said on Monday. .The AG described the same as being a new challenge with constitutional dimensions."Increasingly, I find the State governments, because of political conflict and clashes, are approaching the Supreme Court for a wide range of essentially political debates and issues. These are new challenges with constitutional dimensions; courts have resolved to occupy these issues that have taken a larger constitutional space," he opined..The AG was delivering the 18th Nani Palkhivala Memorial Lecture at SASTRA University, Thanjavur..Just recently, the Kerala government had moved the Supreme Court against President Droupadi Murmu's decision to withhold her assent to four of the seven bills referred to her by the State Governor Arif Mohammed Khan last year.The State had last year too approached the Supreme Court against Governor Khan delaying the grant of assent to bills passed by the State's Legislative Assembly.Similar petitions have been moved by the State governments of Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Telangana in the past.The Karnataka government too moved the apex court recently alleging that the Central government was not extending to it financial assistance for the ongoing drought..The AG described Palkhivala as a tall figure in the Indian legal fraternity who he could only admire from a distance."The depths he brought to legal and constitutional discourse is astounding," the AG said.In his address, the Centre's top law officer also spoke about freedom of speech and basic structure doctrine. He argued that the right to free speech and expression is also a means to discover oneself and one's inner urges. "The urge and need to express are different. We need to communicate as a responsibility. The increased use of Instragram, WhatsApp and so forth may not be a need to communicate, but because communication channels have become so narrow, we need to communicate on every thing under the sun".He spoke of how no civilisation exists without moral and ethical codes, and how the concept of dharma is a vast one. On the basic structure doctrine, he said,"It [doctrine] is an enabling aspect for citizens to use the Constitution as a living document, and for [ensuring] the Constitution [is] to not be treated by governance institutions as a playground without referees. Understanding the doctrine is an independent value and a means of public reasoning to test governmental action, apart from striking down actions."He argued that the Supreme Court has increasingly laid down new, expansive rights derived from the existing fundamental rights. For example, the right to know the antecedents of a candidate emerged from the freedom of speech..Indians value freedom and constitutionalists here need to keep a vigil on social and legal values to prevent fissures from opening in society, he opined.