Supreme Court Bats For Accountability In Parliamentary Democracy - Prescribes Deadlines For The President And The Governors
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2025-04-12 15:33:04
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Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
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In quick succession, the Supreme Court has given important orders that would go a long way in strengthening federalism and reduce the war between the Centre and the states on the one hand and uphold the dignity of the offices of the President and the state Governor, on the other. In the first order, the apex court set a deadline for state governors to either sign or return a bill forwarded to them for assent after being passed by the state assembly.
Article 200 of the Indian constitution prescribes that every bill should have the assent of the state Governor. But it does not set a deadline within which it should be done. Taking advantage of this loophole, some state governors, disregarding the neutral, and advisory, nature of their high office, have been sitting on some bills for an inordinately long time. This derails the law-making process in the state and prevents the state government from pursuing its political agenda for the benefit of the people.
The apex court was very clear that this could not go on. It said in its order that "the prescription of a time-limit is with a view to ensure that the Governor is not conferred with the power of exercising a pocket veto under the scheme of Article 200, and hinder the law-making process in the State without the existence of any reasonable grounds." This was done to prevent the governors from exercising their power under Article 200 in a malicious, arbitrary or capricious manner, the court added.
The court set deadlines from one month to three months for various bills as per the following:
1. If assent was withheld or bill reserved to be sent to the President - 1 month
2. If assent was withheld without reserving for sending to the President - 3 months
3. If bill was reserved for sending to the President, it must be sent within 3 months
4. If bill is sent back to the Governor after reconsideration - 1 month
Although the bench did not explicitly introduce a deemed assent feature in its order, it is clear that in the last case, if the Governors withhold assent for more than one month after the reconsidered bill is sent to them, it will obviously be deemed to have been assented. Hence, 10 Tamil Nadu bills that were kept in abeyance by the state Governor after being sent to him after reconsideration have been deemed to have been assented and have become law after the Supreme Court order. For the rest of the cases, the court said that the action of the governors in withholding the bills beyond the deadline set by the court will be subject to judicial scrutiny.
In a related order, which was a first in judicial history, the Supreme Court even put the President under a deadline by saying that if a state Governor referred a bill to the President on the ground that it was 'unconstitutional', the President must consult the apex court to get the correct advice and take a call on the bill within three months and if it is kept pending beyond that period, must record appropriate reasons and send them to the state concerned.
These orders will go a long way to reduce instances of high-handedness, arbitrariness and even malicious intent on part of the state Governors. They will introduce transparency and bring the Governor's actions under judicial scrutiny.
Is this judicial overreach? The court pointed out that since they have not done anything to change Article 200, it cannot be termed as such. The bench said that "it is crucial to understand that the prescription of a general time-limit by this Court within which the ordinary exercise of power by the Governor under Article 200 must take place, is not the same thing as amending the text of the Constitution to read in a time-limit, thereby fundamentally changing the procedure and mechanism of Article 200". It also said that "the prescription of timelines by us balances the objective of expediency as well as the desirability of having some flexibility in cases of existence of an impossibility in discharge of functions in an expeditious manner. Flexibility in the discharge of a function cannot be allowed to be stretched to an extent that renders the very object underlying such function otiose, resulting into the proverbial snapping of the constitutional machinery."
