Centre in Supreme Court opposes fixing timelines for Prez, guv for assent to bills

NEW DELHI, Aug 19: The Centre on Tuesday opposed in the Supreme Court imposition of fixed timelines on governors and President for taking decisions on bills passed by state legislatures, saying such constraints were “consciously omitted” by the framers of the Constitution.
Challenging the April 8 verdict that fixed timelines for grant of assent to bills, Attorney General R Venkataramani informed a five judge Constitution bench headed by Chief justice B R Gavai that the judgement tied the hands of President who was “virtually robbed of her (discretionary) powers”.
“You bind the hands of the President. The highest consideration of whether to assent or not must remain open,” he said.
While the attorney general was assisting in his personal capacity, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta represented the Centre before the bench also comprising Justices Surya Kant, Vikram Nath, P S Narasimha and A S Chandurkar.
The top court began hearing the presidential reference, seeking opinion on whether President and governors can be legally bound by specific timeframes while exercising their constitutional role in assenting to, or returning, bills.Mehta urged the bench to examine the larger constitutional question — the role of President and governors in India’s federal structure.
“When we are making or interpreting a Constitution, we do it idealistically,” Mehta said. He referred to the constituent assembly debates and historical background of certain constitutional schemes to highlight the framers of the Constitution debated and decided not to fix any timelines for governors and President.
Under the 1915 Act, Mehta said, there was no provision for returning bills and the 1935 Government of India Act, however, introduced a measure of discretion for “Governor-General”, including sending back bills on grounds such as repugnancy or violation of fundamental rights.
He said the Constituent Assembly explicitly considered and rejected proposals for rigid timelines.
“At one stage, the draft suggested that a bill be assented to ‘not later than six weeks’, later changed to ‘as soon as possible’,” Mehta said, citing the intervention of B R Ambedkar, the architect of the Indian Constitution.
The CJI, however, said some members in the constituent assembly had in fact argued for reasonable timelines, pointing out “even six weeks seemed too long”.
However, the law officer said the “idea was not to bind the highest constitutional functionaries” by rigid deadlines.
“The conscious omission of a timeline was deliberate,” he said. (PTI)