Emphasising that “the Governor, as an unelected head of the state, is vested with certain constitutional powers” but “this power cannot be used to frustrate the normal process of law-making” by the state legislature, the Supreme Court ruled that a “Governor cannot be at liberty” to “keep a Bill pending indefinitely without any action”.
Noting that the “substantive part of Article 200 empowers the Governor to withhold his assent to the Bill”, the three-judge bench of Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said, “In such a case, the Governor is compelled to follow the course of action… of communicating to the State Legislature ‘as early as possible’ a message warranting reconsideration of the Bill”.
The bench made this clear in its judgement on a plea by the Punjab government against Governor Banwarilal Purohit for withholding bills sent to him by the state legislature – the detailed order on the 10 November judgement was uploaded on the Supreme Court website on Thursday.
The judgement is significant as the governments of Tamil Nadu and Kerala had also recently moved the court against the Governor’s inaction on the bills.
The bench said, “The expression ‘as soon as may be’ is significant. It conveys a constitutional imperative of expedition. Failure to take a call and keeping a duly passed Bill for an indefinite period is a course of action inconsistent with that expression. Constitutional language is not superfluous… The Constitution obviously contains this provision in view of the importance attached to the power of legislation, which lies squarely within the domain of the State Legislature. The Governor cannot be at liberty to keep the Bill pending indefinitely without taking any action”.
The Governor, it said, “is a symbolic head and cannot withhold action on bills passed by the State Legislature”.
Failure to read the Governor’s power under Article 200 in this way would mean that “the Governor, as the unelected head of state, would be in a position to effectively veto the functioning of the legislative domain of a duly elected legislature by simply declaring that assent is withheld without any further recourse. Such a course of action would be contrary to the basic principles of a constitutional democracy based on a parliamentary system of government”.
The bench said that “the manner in which the role of the Governor, as the symbolic head of the State, is discharged is critical to the preservation of federalism”, which is considered to be a basic structure of the Constitution.
It said: “The exercise of unbridled discretion in areas not entrusted to the discretion of the Governor risks running roughshod over the workings of a democratically elected government in the State. In a steady series of cases, this Court has reaffirmed the importance of institutions and their vitality for democratic functioning. Federalism and democracy, both parts of the basic structure, are inseparable. If one is diluted, the other is endangered. The tuning fork of democracy and federalism is vital to the realisation of the fundamental freedoms and aspirations of our citizens. Whenever one prong of the tuning fork is damaged, the apparatus of constitutional governance is damaged”.
The bench said: “The Governor, as a leading statesman, may recommend reconsideration of the entire Bill or any part of it and may even indicate the desirability of introducing amendments. However, the final decision as to whether or not to accept the Governor’s advice as contained in the message rests with the legislature alone”.