AIADMK general secretary and Leader of the Opposition Edappadi K. Palaniswami on Saturday questioned the need to convene a special session of the Assembly to readopt the Bills for which the Governor had withheld assent when the State government was already fighting a case on the issue in the Supreme Court.
Speaking in the Assembly on the resolution moved by Chief Minister M.K. Stalin for reconsidering the Bills, he said the readoption of the Bills should not affect the legal battle. He said the State government could have waited for a favourable decision from the Supreme Court instead of urgently convening the Assembly.
The Leader of the House and Water Resources Minister Duraimurugan said Governor R.N. Ravi, who was sitting on the Bills for several months, communicated his decision of withholding assent only after the State government approached the Supreme Court. He said the Government wanted to swiftly readopt the Bills and send it back to Raj Bhavan since it did not want the Governor to claim before the Supreme Court that the Bills were not pending with him when the case comes up for hearing again in a couple of days. He said the Governor now had no other choice, but to grant assent to these Bills.
Mr. Palaniswami questioned the need for readopting only these 10 Bills when there were more Bills still pending with the Governor. Mr. Duraimurugan said these Bills were taken up because the Governor had communicated his decision only for these. Law Minister S. Regupathy pointed out that five more Bills sent recently and 50 petitions for premature release of prisoners were pending with the Governor.
Inconsistent stand
The majority of the Bills taken up by the Assembly on Saturday dealt with transferring the power of appointing Vice-Chancellors of universities from Governor to the government. Mr. Palaniswami argued that there would have been no necessity for such Bills had the DMK supported AIADMK’s move in 1994 to make the Chief Minister as the Chancellor of all State-run universities instead of Governors. He pointed out that the DMK, which came to power in 1996, repealed this move. He blamed the DMK for being inconsistent in its stand.
Mr. Stalin said that the DMK then opposed the move because there was no necessity. He said the convention was to make the V-C appointments after consulting with the State government. Changes are needed now since the convention is not followed anymore, he added.
