Supreme Court notice to Centre, Governors' Additional Chief Secretary on plea by Kerala, West Bengal regarding pending Bills

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday decided to examine a plea by Kerala and West Bengal governments complaining about the delay in clearing of Bills by the State Governors.

A bench of Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra issued notice to the Centre and Additional Chief Secretary to the respective Governors and asked them to file a detailed reply within three weeks.

The Kerala and West Bengal governments filed separate pleas challenging the Governors' decisions to keep several bills pending for months, either refusing to assent them or reserving them for President's consideration.

After brief submissions by senior advocates K K Venugopal and A M Singhvi appearing for Kerala and West Bengal governments respectively, the bench said: "Let the reply be filed in three weeks and also a joint note be submitted from the States."

Venugopal submitted that there was a need for the court to lay down guidelines on this issue as to when the Governors can return and refer Bills to the President.

He said this court should tell the Governor as to when they can refuse to assent, when they can refer to the President.

"There is a confusion in the minds of various Governors in the country as to what their powers are in regard to assenting to bills. In the present (Kerala) case, out of eight bills, two of them had been kept pending for 23 months. One for 15 months. Another for 13 months. And others for 10 months. Now, it is a very sad state of affairs. This is a confusion among the Governors that they keep bills pending. This is against the Constitution," he said.

Singhvi for the West Bengal government said that every time the court hears the matter, some bills are cleared. He said, the same thing happened in Tamil Nadu case as well.

In its petition filed under Article 32 of the Constitution, the Kerala government challenged the action or reconsideration of President Droupadi Murmu in withholding assent for four out of the seven Bills referred by the Kerala Governor.

The Kerala govt also challenged the Governor's action of referring the Bills to the President, contending that none of the bills related to Centre-State relations and required the Presidential assent.

In its plea, the West Bengal government questioned the Governor for not acting on eight Bills since 2022 going against the constitutional mandate and affecting rights of the residents of the state.

It sought a direction to the Governor through his secretary to dispose of those bills within a specified time frame.

The West Bengal government said the Governor has to treat the bill with a sense of urgency and alacrity.

The Governor has to act "as soon as possible" as per the proviso of Article 200, meaning within a reasonable time, and further urgently and expeditiously without any avoidable delay, it said.