Sc Kerala’s supplication about the behavior of governors in March

An overview of the Supreme Court. | Photo credit: Shashi Shekhar Kashyap

The State of Kerala on Thursday (February 6, 2025) pressed for an early hearing in the Supreme Court its court request arguing that the governors in the states governed by the opposition have triggered an “endemic” of delaying the settlement or sitting indefinitely in crucial bills approved by legislative assemblies.

In an oral mention before a bank headed by the president of the Supreme Court of India, Sanjiv Khanna, the lawyer CK Sasi, for Kerala, said that the court is currently listening to a similar request presented by the state of Tamil Nadu that challenges the conduct of Governor RN Ravi, who sat down 10 laws, mostly dealing with higher education, before referring to their consideration to the President.

The president of the Supreme Court Khanna said that Kerala’s request would be listed in March.

The case of Kerala had been the last in November 2023 before a bank of the then president of the Supreme Court Dy Chandrachud, judges JB Pardiwala and Mistoj Misra.

Judge Pardiwala is currently listening to the Tamil Nadu case in a bank that includes justice R. Mahadevan.

At a hearing on November 20, 2023, Senior KK Venuitopal lawyer, who appeared for Kerala, had said that eight key invoices were separated from eight to 23 months. The State had argued that the governor was part of the state legislature under article 168 and could not act contrary to the wishes of the elected representatives of the people.

Article 168 explains that “for each State, there will be a legislature that will consist of the governor and two houses that will be known respectively as the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly.”

The Court had issued at that time a notice to the office of the governor of Kerala at that hearing.

Also read | The governors cannot sit on the bills approved by the Assembly: the Supreme Court

At the next hearing, on November 29, 2023, he had not escaped the attention of the Court that some of the bills had been treated by the governor. The then governor Arif Mohammad Khan had nodded a bill and sent the remaining seven to the president for consideration.

However, Mr. Venufopal had demanded in the court that the governor explained whether the seven bill referring to the President had violated article 254 (inconsistency between the central and state laws) or if they had reached the list of the Union.

“He (Governor Khan) cannot blindly send the seven bills to the President,” said Mr. Venufopal.

The president of the Supreme Court Chandrachud (now retired) had found a substance in the state presentations, noting that the “governor’s power cannot be used to frustrate the normal process of democratic law by the legislature.”

Attorney General R. Venkataramani, who had appeared in the governor’s office on November 29, had said that there were “political and non -political dimensions” and that he did not want to enter that.

“But we will get into that. There must be a responsibility of the governor, ”the president of the President of Justice had replicated.

Mr. Venufopal had argued that constitutional authorities cannot afford arbitrarily.

“You cannot deliver a white letter to the governors … Please intervene strongly or people will suffer,” then Mr. Venuge had urged the court.