Governors can't sit over bills indefinitely: Centre in SC

NEW DELHI: Centre on Wednesday agreed with opposition-led states that governors cannot sit over a bill indefinitely but argued before the Supreme Court that the Constitution had vested in them the discretion to decide whether to grant or withhold assent to legislation, return it with suggestions to the assembly or reserve it for the President's consideration.

Responding to opposition-led states' insistence that a governor, being just an ornamental head, cannot choose any of the options without the aid and advice of the council of ministers, solicitor general (SG) Tushar Mehta said a wrong political canvas has been presented in court to persuade it to transgress Parliament's domain and amend constitutional provisions related to governors' powers to make them rubber stamps at the hands of state govts.

While Parliament may amend the Constitution under Article 368 (subject to the basic structure), the judiciary's role is confined to interpretation. If courts were to expand the meaning of a provision beyond its textual or structural limits, it would confer upon the judiciary a power equivalent to Parliament, a result not envisaged by the framers (of the Constitution). Such a course would be contrary to the constitutional scheme," Mehta told a bench of CJI B R Gavai and Justices Surya Kant, Vikram Nath, P S Narasimha and A S Chandurkar.

After nine days of a riveting constitutional debate on the state-governor spat over bills, the SC's April 8 decision fixing timelines for governors and the President, followed by a Presidential Reference flagging powers of the apex court, Mehta said the Centre agreed with Kerala govt that a governor and a state govt should work collaboratively through consultati-on, with the former acting as a friend, philosopher and guide for the council of ministers.


He added that the SC was not the headmaster of polity to address every conceivable issue raised by states which primarily belong to the political arena and which could be resolved through consultation among the PM, CM and ministers with the governor, or the President.

This has been the practice in Indian polity because of which democracy has grown stronger and the constitutional provisions, including their interpretations by SC, are followed scrupulously. He said since 1970, governors of states had been presented with 17,150 bills, of which assent was withheld in only 20 bills.

He said 933 bills had been reserved for President's consideration by governors, who granted assent to 16,122 (94%) of the bills - 14,402 of the nods coming within a month, 623 within three months, 126 in six months and the rest thereafter.

Paying tribute to the framers of the Constitution for giving the governor the right to withhold assent to a bill, something termed by opposition-led states as subversion of the will of the people expressed through legislature, Mehta cited the example of the bill that the Punjab assembly passed in 2004 to terminate its water-sharing agreement with Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi.

Should the governor, whom some states term a mere rubber stamp at the hands of the council of ministers, have granted assent to such a bill that would have adversely impacted inter-state, federal and India-Pakistan relations, the SG asked.

The governor reserved this bill for consideration of the President, who, in turn, sent a reference seeking SC's opinion on the legality of unilateral annulment of water-sharing agreements, he said, adding that in his view governors in such situations are entitled to withhold assent to protect the constitutional scheme of quasi-federal governance. Arguments will conclude Thursday.