The Supreme Court has given a timely reminder to the governors that the Constitution requires that a decision to return a bill to the state legislature for reconsideration must be made “as soon as possible”. It has drawn attention to the phrase found in the first proviso to Article 200, which seeks to convey a sense of urgency in the matter of returning a bill. The court said, “The expression ‘as soon as possible’ has significant constitutional content and must be taken into account by the constitutional authorities.” This effectively means that it would be constitutionally improper for governors to stall bills indefinitely without informing the House of their decision. The Governor of Telangana, Dr. Tamilisai Soundararajan, against whose apparent inaction on several Bills the State had approached the Court, informed the Court that she had no Bills pending with her, and that she had written two letters to the Government seeking more information. The Bills were returned for reconsideration. On some other Govt. Based on this, the Court disposed of the petition, but kept open the questions arising out of this issue for consideration in an appropriate case. The court’s remarks address the issue of delay, but this is only one aspect of the dispute. In most parliamentary democracies the issue of granting consent is seen as a formality, but in India the specific discretionary powers granted to governors have given much scope for controversy.
The Governor’s power to withhold assent or to return the bill with a message for reconsideration is seen as discretionary. In the Constituent Assembly, it was made explicitly clear that withdrawal of a bill was to be done only on advice, and it was an enabling provision for the government to withdraw a pending bill if it had second thoughts on its advice. . There are three obvious problems with Article 200 relating to assent to bills: the absence of a time limit for action on bills, the scope for reserving a bill for the President’s consideration against the express advice of the cabinet, and the claim that the Governor can can also scuttle the bill by rejecting its assent. The mischief lies in Article 163, which primary mandates that the governor act on the ‘aid and advice’ of the cabinet, with a clause that prohibits any inquiry into whether a particular matter falls within his discretion. These provisions give ample scope for confrontation between the government and the Raj Bhavan. There is no doubt that these should be changed either by amending the Constitution or through an appropriate judgment of the Supreme Court, so as to prevent the misuse of the Governor’s discretion.