Centre Tells Supreme Court: Presidential Reference Could Create Constitutional Chaos

Centre Tells Supreme Court: The government has cautioned against setting a deadline on the President and the Governors to clear bills and this is in contrast to an order given earlier by the Supreme Court. In April, a bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan had laid down three months as the deadline within which the President and one month to state his/her decisions on those bills passed.

These timelines shall constitute an organs of the government exercising powers not bestowed on it and the government will create constitutional chaos the government said in a written submission to the top court.

"Even under its extraordinary powers vested in Article 142, the Supreme Court cannot amend the Constitution or defeat the intent of the Constitution makers, provided there are no such procedural mandates in the constitutional text," Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said in his submission.

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The process of assent might have it some limited problems in implementation, nevertheless such cannot be used in demeaning the higher office of the Governor to a subordinate one, Mr Mehta said.

He claimed that the offices of the Governor and President were politically complete and embodied, ideas of higher ideals of democratic governance. Such perceived violations ought to be corrected by political and constitutional means but not by what he termed as unjust judicial intrusions.

Under the constitution under Article 200 the Governor is entitled to give assent to the bills presented to him by legislature, reserve or withholding the same to be considered by the president. He is also able to bring it back to the House and reconsider, however in the event that after the reconsideration it again becomes a bill, the Governor is not allowed to withhold assent. Another option available to the Governor is to withhold the bill to the consideration of the President in case it seems to be opposed by the Constitution or the directive principles of state policy or a national interest.

The Supreme Court in its April 12 order in a case which pertained to Tamil Nadu had attempted to control this process and directed the Constitutional heads to work on a time line so that the pending bills could be cleared.

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It ordered, "We deem it appropriate to adopt the timeline prescribed by the Ministry of Home Affairs... and prescribe that the President is required to take a decision on the bills reserved for his consideration by the Governor within a period of three months from the date on which such reference is received."

The decision received criticism, as President Droupadi Murmu took questions to the Supreme Court on the constitutional propriety of such deadlines. The President under the Article 143 of the Constitution of India wrote 14 questions to the top court on his opinions about the powers of the President and Governors under Articles 200 and 201 in the working with bills enacted by the state legislatures.

In July a bench led by Chief Justice of India BR Gavai set a time schedule to take up the Presidential reference case and take up an alternate course of action on the questions proposed to it by the President. The bench which also consists of Justices Surya Kant, Vikram Nath, PS Narasimha, and Atul S Chandurkar had previously requested the states as well as the Centre to provide their written submissions and had given them a deadline up till August 12.

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