NEW DELHI: The Centre on Wednesday defended the constitutional scheme conferring discretion on governors on bills, and said for the last 55 years it has worked smoothly with the heads of states assenting to 94% of over 17,000 bills presented to them and withholding assent only to 20 bills.Presenting statistics on bills presented to governors since 1970 and the decisions taken on them, solicitor general Tushar Mehta told a bench of CJI B R Gavai, and Justices Surya Kant, Vikram Nath, P S Narasimha and A S Chandurkar that in 84% of the bills, the governors had granted assent within one month of receiving the bills, which indicates that the constitutional scheme has worked irrespective of the political parties governing at the Centre and the states.It is only a few states who have decided to rush to Supreme Court in the last few years to attempt solutions through judicial adjudication, rather than resorting to the tried and tested political mechanism which for more than five decades had been able to resolve the differences between the state govts and the governors.He said of the 17,150 bills presented to governors between 1970 and 2025, 16,122 were assented to, of which 14,402 bills (84%) received governors’ assent within a month of the heads of the states receiving them. The statistics indicated the trend to be true even for TN, where an overwhelming majority of the bills received assent from governor within a month.Presentation of the data by the SG invited protests from senior advocates Kapil Sibal (for Bengal) and A M Singhvi (for TN), who said the court did not allow them to present statistics about inordinate delays on part of governors to take a decision on the bills, some extending to years. The bench agreed and stopped SG from relying on the statistics.CJI Gavai said, “We didn’t allow them to rely on statistics about delay on bills caused by individual governors. We will only answer the questions referred to us by the President based on interpretation of the constitutional provisions.”Mehta said individual aberrations by governors in delaying decisions on bills cannot be a reason for the court to enter the forbidden territory on amendment of constitutional provisions, which fall within the exclusive domain of Parliament.Appearing for DMK, senior advocate P Wilson said TN has suffered the most because of the unconstitutional delay resulting from the inaction of the ornamental head of state in the governor. He said, “A bill born in assembly cannot be killed in Raj Bhawan.”
