Kerala Moves Supreme Court Against HC Order Denying Deadline For Governor To Approve Bills

Earlier, an advocate had filed a plea before Kerala High Court challenging the action of Kerala Governor withholding assent to Bills indefinitely.

On Wednesday, Kerala government filed the petition before Supreme Court against the judgment of Kerala High Court

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The Kerala government filed a petition before Supreme Court against the judgment of Kerala High Court dismissing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) challenging the action of Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan withholding the bills passed by state Assembly. The High Court in an order passed in November 2022 observed that it cannot fix a time limit for the Governor to give assent to bills.

According to ANI, Kerala Government moved the Supreme Court challenging Kerala High Court's Ernakulam bench order which dismissed an advocate's plea challenging the action of the Governor for withholding assent to Bills indefinitely.

Kerala Government moves Supreme Court challenging Kerala High Court's Ernakulam bench order which dismissed an advocate's plea challenging action of Governor for withholding assent to Bills indefinitely pic.twitter.com/9Ccm1zil2U

— ANI (@ANI) November 8, 2023

 

The development just came a few days after Kerala government moved a petition in SC against Governor. Last week, Kerala government moved a writ petition in the Supreme Court against Governor Arif Mohammed Khan for inaction on his part regarding eight Bills passed by the state legislature on Thursday. The writ petition was filed by advocate C.K. Sasi. The petition said three Bills have been pending before the Governor for more than 2 years.

"Grave injustice is being done to the people of the State, as also to its representative democratic institutions (i.e. the State Legislature and the Executive) by the Governor, by keeping Bills pending for long periods of time," said the petition.

During a recent session of a related petition filed by the State of Punjab,  a bench headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud emphasized that Governors cannot indefinitely delay the approval of bills. Additionally, the bench agreed to review the petition filed by Kerala and a similar plea filed by Tamil Nadu, in conjunction with Punjab's case, scheduled for further consideration on Friday.