The Supreme Court on Wednesday found substance in the argument of the State of Kerala that Governor Arif Mohammad Khan behaved like an “adversary” by keeping eight key Bills pending for two years before granting assent to one and referring seven to the President.
A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud noted that neither reason nor justification was given by the Governor to keep the Bills pending for such an “inordinately long period”. It also did not escape the Court’s attention that the Governor dealt with the Bills only after notice was issued to the Raj Bhavan on November 20 on a petition filed by Kerala.
“There is some substance in what is being argued by the State here. What was the Governor doing for two years on these Bills… The power of the Governor cannot be used to thwart the normal process of democratic law-making by the legislature,” Chief Justice Chandrachud observed.
