The Supreme Court on Monday, November 20, issued notice on a plea filed by Kerala against "inaction" on the part of Governor Arif Mohammed Khan in giving assent to the bills passed by the state legislature. The court is hearing petitions by Kerala and Tamil Nadu state governments challenging the delay by their respective governors to grant assent to bills cleared by the legislature.

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra sought the response of the Union government and Additional Chief Secretary to the Governor by Friday.

“Issue notice to the second and third respondents, returnable on Friday. We request the Attorney General of India or the Solicitor General to assist this court in the matter,” the bench ordered.

During the hearing, senior advocate KK Venugopal, representing the Kerala government, said that Governors should realise they are a part of the state legislature under Article 168 of the Constitution.

Venugopal said that as many as eight bills are waiting for assent from Governor Khan for a period ranging from seven to 23 months. He said that the Governor also continued to sit on three bills which had been promulgated earlier as ordinances under his signature.

According to the plea, as many as eight bills were presented to the Governor for his assent and of these, “three have been pending with the Governor for more than two years, and three more in excess of a full year."

The plea filed by the Kerala government said that by keeping bills presented to him pending for such long periods, the Governor is directly violating the provision of the Constitution, namely, that the bill should be dealt with "as soon as possible."

The writ petition said that the words "as soon as possible" occurring in Article 200 of the Constitution necessarily meant that not only should pending bills be disposed of within a reasonable time, but that these bills have to be dealt with urgently and expeditiously without any avoidable delay.

It added that the Governor's alleged inaction defeated the rights of the people of the state to the welfare measures sought to be implemented through the bills.

"The conduct of the Governor, as would presently be demonstrated, threatens to defeat and subvert the very fundamentals and basic foundations of our Constitution, including the rule of law and democratic good governance," the plea said. The matter has been posted to December 1 for further hearing.