PRESIDENTIAL REFERENCE: 90% Bills cleared within a month since 1970, Centre tells SC

As Opposition-ruled states cried foul over inordinate delay in gubernatorial assent to Bills, the Centre on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that 90 per cent of the Bills passed by state assemblies since 1970 received assent within a month.

On the ninth day of hearing on the Presidential Reference on timelines for assent to state bills, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told a five-judge Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice of India BR Gavai that gubernatorial assents were withheld only in 20 instances of the total 17,150 Bills.

Of the 20 instances where assent was withheld, seven Bills related to the recent row in Tamil Nadu, Mehta added.

“In the last 55 years, 90 per cent Bills were assented to (by Governors) within one month… and assent has been withheld in only 20 cases… I have given empirical data on how the Constitution worked,” he said.

The bench — which also included Justice Surya Kant, Justice Vikram Nath, Justice PS Narasimha and Justice AS Chandurkar – however, objected to Mehta’s attempt to refer to data, saying it will not be fair to other side as they were not allowed to refer to any such data.

“We did not permit them to show any data. This is not fair to them (those opposing the presidential reference). You had objected when they wanted to refer to their data,” the bench said, adding it would only focus on constitutional issues.

Senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Singhvi – representing West Bengal and Tamil Nadu against the Presidential Reference – also took strong objection to Mehta’s submission, pointing out that they were barred from producing similar data.  Sibal said such disputes largely arose only after 2014.

The bench noted that it had an “enormous task” at hand of balancing two extreme positions, one viewing the Governor as entirely bound, and the other allowing wide discretion.

Mehta also countered the arguments of the Opposition-ruled states that governors were bound to act as mere transmitters of the will of elected legislatures. Governors were not postmen and such a “postman analogy” reduces the constitutional role of governors to an “ornamental” position, he asserted. The arguments would resume on Thursday.