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Telangana Governor cleared 3 bills, SC told
Reacting to Tamilisai’s decision on the pending bills, senior Bharat Rashtra Samithi leader and state finance minister T Harish Rao said it was unfortunate that she had given consent to only three of the 10 pending bills, that too, only after the intervention of the Supreme Court
Telangana governor Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan has given consent to three bills, returned two to the state government and sent two others to the Centre for Presidential assent. This information was conveyed on Monday through the central government to the Supreme Court while it was hearing the arguments over a petition filed by the Telangana government.
Soundararajan took the decision on the bills on April 7, according to a Raj Bhavan official.
In her petition filed before the Supreme Court, filed on March 2 on behalf of Telangana government, chief secretary Santi Kumari had said the state was forced to seek the top court’s intervention under Article 32 due to the frequent constitutional impasse created on account of the refusal of the governor to act on several bills passed by the state legislature since September 14, 2022.
The development comes nearly seven months after the state legislature passed at least 10 bills.
A division bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud deferred the case by two more weeks for further hearing.
While a Raj Bhavan spokesperson refused to comment on the issue as the issue is sub-judice, the Supreme Court order, as reviewed by HT, quoted Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta submitting to the court that the governor had approved three bills —Telangana Motor Vehicles Taxation (Amendment) Bill, 2022, Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University (Amendment) Bill, 2023 and Telangana Municipal Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2022.
Further, the governor reserved two bills for consideration and assent of the President of India. They are: The University of Forestry Telangana Bill, 2022 and The Telangana Universities Common Recruitment Board Bill, 2022.
The government withheld three other bills: the Telangana State Private Universities (Establishment and Regulation) (Amendment) Bill, 2022; the Telangana Municipal Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2022 and the Telangana Public Employment (Regulation of Age of Superannuation).
Tamilisai returned two other bills — the Telangana Panchayat Raj (Amendment) Bill 2023 and the Azamabad Industrial Area (Termination and Regulation of Leases) (Amendment) Bill 2022, back to the state government, raising certain objections, and asking the government to rectify the same.
Talking about the delay, the Raj Bhavan official quoted above said: “The governor had sought clarification from the state government on these pending bills but did not receive satisfactory response. Hence, the delay in giving the consent.”
Earlier, chief secretary Santi Kumari in the petition had highlighted Article 163 of the Constitution as per which the governor is required to exercise his/her functions or any of them in his/ her discretion only on the aid and advice of the council of ministers with the chief minister as its head.
Specifically with regard to the governor’s powers on dealing with bills, the state government pointed to Article 200 of the Constitution. “The governor may assent or may withhold assent in which case the bill must be returned to the state legislature,” she said.
If the bill is so returned, the Houses are required to reconsider accordingly and once passed with or without the amendments so suggested and presented to the governor for assent, the governor shall not withhold the assent, the state government argued.
Reacting to Tamilisai’s decision on the pending bills, senior Bharat Rashtra Samithi leader and state finance minister T Harish Rao said it was unfortunate that she had given consent to only three of the 10 pending bills, that too, only after the intervention of the Supreme Court.
“She did not respond even after the minister concerned met her and explained the importance of bills. It is surprising that even the bill on formation of a forest university was not given the consent and sent to Presidential approval. This is nothing but playing with the future of the students,” Rao said.
