A history of sorts will be created on Tuesday if the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly adopts again a Bill seeking to dispense with the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) in the State.
This will be for the first time in the history of the State legislature that the House will re-adopt the same draft of the bill, which has been returned by Governor R. N. Ravi.
In February 2017, a similar Bill was adopted by the House under the AIADMK dispensation but President Ram Nath Kovind, seven months later, decided to withhold assent to it.
In the past, on five occasions the Governor or President had returned Bills adopted by the House. On four occasions, the returned Bills did not come back to the House for consideration again. Only one Bill which was taken up by the House again was the Madras Essential Articles (Control and Requisitioning) (Temporary Powers) Re-enacting Act. This was done in March 1956, but with an amendment, as recommended by the then President Rajendra Prasad (1950-62) and conveyed through Governor Sri Prakasa (March 1952 - December 1956). The recommendation pertained to the enforcement of penal provisions with retrospective effect.
The other four Bills were the Tamil Nadu Cultivating Tenants (Right to Purchase Landowners’ Rights) Bill, 1973, Cinemas (Regulation) Second Amendment Bill, 1987, Code of Criminal Procedure (Tamil Nadu Amendment) Bill, 2002 and the Code of Criminal Procedure (Tamil Nadu Second Amendment) Bill 2002.
As for the first Bill passed in April 1973, the then President V.V. Giri returned it in August 1974, with the recommendation that a couple of clauses be revisited. The Bill was referred to the joint select committee, which did not finalise its report. In January 1976, the Assembly was dissolved, rendering the Bill infructuous. The second Bill, adopted during the AIADMK regime, came back to the House in March 1989 when the DMK was in power after 13 years. It was returned by the then Governor P. C. Alexander, questioning the competence of the legislature to enact such a Bill, which sought to prohibit for a period of two years in the first instance and for further periods, the exhibition of films containing matters derogatory of the conduct of the MLAs. The government had decided not to proceed with the legislation. The last two Bills pertained to procedures and the manner of remand extension of accused. After the two Bills were returned by the President, the AIADMK government did not go ahead with the amendments.
Besides, on many occasions, either the assent was withheld by the President, as happened in respect of the 2017 Bill on NEET or the government chose to withdraw certain pieces of legislation on getting the opinion of the Governor.
