Chennai: Tamilnadu Legsilative Assembly Speaker M Appavu has called for setting a binding time frame for Governor’s to act on Bills sent by the House to be assented to, returned or reserved for consideration of the President, who should specify the reason if any Bill was returned by him.
In his address at the Speaker’s conference in Shimla, which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said he was touching upon an an important issue facing State Legislatures at the moment and said when a Bill was passed by majority and sent for the assent of the Governor, they sometimes sit over the Bill without giving his assent or returning the Bill for an indefinite period, even though the Constitution requires it to be done ‘as soon as possible’.
He said ‘another problem we see is that where a Bill requires to be reserved for the consideration of the President, the Governors are taking months together to reserve the Bills for the assent of the President, even though they are bound to do so immediately.’
Observing that this erodes the authority of the Legislatures, Appavu said the Governors, though heads the State Executive, are appointed by the Union
government.
‘Therefore, when they stall the assent to a Bill, they are virtually overruling the will of the people of the State’, he added.
‘We have to work together to set a binding time frame within which Bills have to be assented to, returned or reserved for the consideration of the President of India by the Governors’, Appavu said.
Raising one more important Constitutional issue in the conference, the Speaker said when a Bill passed by the State was reserved for the consideration of the President, and if the President withholds the assent and returns the Bill, should not the President give reasons for such return?
‘How else will the House that enacted the Bill know what is the real impediment in withholding the assent? Since the House reflects the will of the people, withholding of assent to a Bill amounts to rejection of the will of the people of that State’, he said and added that people were entitled to know at least the reason for which the Bill was not assented to.
‘If the House knows the reasons, may be they can enact another Bill, correcting the shortfalls that caused the President to withhold the assent’, he said.