NEW DELHI: Supreme Court drew inspiration from provisions in the constitutions of Pakistan and the US in specifying timelines for governors in giving assent, returning or referring to President the bills passed by state assemblies, and said time-limit breach is amenable to judicial scrutiny.
The 415-page magnum opus of a judgment by Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan, pronounced on April 8 but uploaded on SC’s website Friday, justified its decision to give purposive meaning to the words ‘as soon as possible’ in the Constitution for governors or the President in taking decision on bills passed by assemblies or Parliament.
Writing the judgment, Justice Pardiwala gave omnibus scrutiny powers to SC, and said, “No exercise of power under the Constitution is beyond the ambit of its judicial review. Thus, we find no reason to exclude discharge of functions by governor or President under Articles 200 & 201 of the Constitution, respectively.”
The first question that arose before SC was whether the court had jurisdiction to step beyond the written words of the Constitution to prescribe a time-limit for the governor. It did so by drawing inspiration, first from its own judgment in 2021 prescribing a three-month outer-limit for Speakers to adjudicate pleas seeking disqualification of MLAs under anti-defection law.
The other inspiration came from constitutions of Pakistan and the US. Justice Pardiwala said, “For instance, Article 75 of the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan or Article I, Section 7 of the US Constitution, where if no decision is taken within the stipulated time limit by President, then bills are deemed to have been assented to.”
Article 75 of Pakistan’s constitution provides a 10-day period for the President to either assent or return a bill to Majlis-e-Shoora (parliament). If the returned bill is re-passed with or without amendment, then the president is bound to give assent to it within 10 days, beyond which the bill is deemed to have received his assent. But the court was aware that “unlike many countries across the globe wherein a provision for deemed assent upon the expiry of the specified time period has been made, there is no such provision in our Constitution”. At the same time, it mentioned that during Constituent Assembly debates, Dr B R Ambedkar had proposed a six-week time limit for governors on this issue and that both the Sarkaria and Punchhi commissions had favoured a time limit.
Thus, in the case of TN, SC had to resort to its potent Article 142 powers to rule that the long-delayed 10 bills passed by the assembly, on which the governor had dilly-dallied for months, would be deemed to have got his assent, and declared that his decision to refer them to the President after their re-passing by the assembly is illegal. It said any decision on such referred bills by the President would also be void. Sans a time limit, governors could play spoilsport for democracy where an elected govt gets five years to implement policies and election promises, SC said. “Not taking any action on bills for an unreasonable and prolonged period of time virtually vests the governor with the power of pocket veto and it can’t be held to be permissible within our constitutional scheme,” SC said.
