The Centre on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that its April 8 judgment regarding the Tamil Nadu Governor’s handling of Bills does not extend to the case involving similar allegations made by the Kerala government against its Governor.
The submission was made by Attorney General R Venkataramani and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta during a hearing before a bench comprising Justices P S Narasimha and Joymalya Bagchi, which was examining Kerala’s petition alleging that its Governor had delayed clearing Bills passed by the state legislature.
The Centre argued that the Tamil Nadu case involved specific factual circumstances and therefore could not be directly applied to Kerala’s dispute. The state of Kerala, however, maintained that the judgment which found fault with Tamil Nadu Governor R N Ravi’s reservation of 10 Bills for presidential consideration should serve as precedent, as it set timelines for gubernatorial action and affirmed constitutional limits.
Kerala’s counsel, Senior Advocate K K Venugopal, submitted that the central issue was the delay in the Governor referring the Bills to the President and noted that the April 8 ruling had fixed a three-month timeframe for such action, citing a government circular. Despite this, the Attorney General contended that key factual differences made the ruling inapplicable to the Kerala matter and sought to present those distinctions to the court.
Meanwhile, the Solicitor General requested more time to study the relevance of the April 8 decision to the current petition. The Kerala government also informed the bench that it had filed a separate petition concerning the President’s delay in clearing certain Bills, which is scheduled to be heard by the Chief Justice of India’s bench on May 13.
The bench noted the procedural implications and observed that the matter should be brought to the attention of the Chief Justice. It also indicated that it would examine whether the previous ruling could be applied to the Kerala dispute or whether the circumstances warranted separate consideration.