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Delhi: Supreme Court on Friday spurned the Tamil Nadu govt’s plea for a direction to the President not to take decision on two bills — one to establish Kalaignar University and the other amending the TN Physical Education and Sports University Act — which according to the state were “unconstitutionally” referred to her by the governor disregarding the advice of council of ministers, reports Dhananjay Mahapatra.“We cannot pass an order preventing the President from taking a decision,” said a bench of CJI B R Gavai and Justice K Vinod Chandran when senior advocate P Wilson pleaded that the governor had acted in violation of the constitutional mandate to act in aid and advice of the council of ministers.If guv was to test repugnancy of bills, then he should be in SC: TN Adjourning hearing on two writ petitions filed by TN challenging the governor’s decision, the bench said, “You would have to wait at most for four weeks to get a clear picture.” A five-judge bench led by the CJI had on Sept 11 reserved verdict on President’s Reference, questioning the jurisdiction of SC to fix time limits for the President and governors on granting or refusing assent to bills passed by a state assembly.Since CJI Gavai is retiring on Nov 24, the judgment would have to be pronounced before that by the five judge-bench, which also comprises Justices Surya Kant, Vikram Nath, P S Narasimha and A S Chandurkar. The President had framed 14 questions related to jurisdiction of SC and the ambit of its exclusive powers under Article 142 after a two-judge bench led by Justice J B Pardiwala had on Apr 8 granted deemed assent to 10 TN bills pending for months before the governor.Appearing for TN, senior advocates A M Singhvi and Mukul Rohatgi said the governor cannot scrutinise the bills clause by clause to declare its repugnancy to central laws and refer it to the President.“If the governor was to test the repugnancy of bills, then he should be sitting in SC and not in Raj Bhavan,” Rohatgi said.Solicitor general Tushar Mehta said governors, since the coming into force of the Constitution in 1950, have been testing the repugnancy of bills and it is not a recent practice. Moreover, he presented statistics before the court to show that only a minuscule of the bills sent to governors have been referred to the President.He said of the 6,942 bills sent to governors in all states since 2015, assent has been granted in 6,481 bills, 50 have been returned with a message to assemblies, assent has been withheld in 11 and 381 bills have been reserved for consideration of the President.
