Tamil Nadu Governor verdict doesn't apply to Kerala: Centre to Supreme Court

New Delhi: The Centre on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that the April 8, 2025 judgment in the case of Tamil Nadu Governor on pending bills does not cover the facts in a similar plea filed by the Kerala government, questioning the delay in clearing the bills by the state Governor.

A bench of Justices P S Narasimha and Joymalya Bagchi scheduled the matter for consideration on May 6 as Solicitor General Tushar Mehta sought time to study the Tamil Nadu judgment while maintaining it does not cover the Kerala case.

Attorney General R Venkataramani also submitted that Tamil Nadu's judgment does not cover certain issues of the instant cases on facts.

"We would like to show those differences," he said.

At the outset, senior advocate K K Venugopal, appearing for the Kerala government, submitted that the matter stood covered by the recent judgment in Tamil Nadu case. The issue is what is the time limit for reference to the President, which has been held to be of three months. That is pursuant to a circular issued by the central government, he pointed out.

The bench then asked Venugopal as to what he does propose and if he wanted to withdraw the plea since that judgment is there.

Solicitor General Mehta said, on the question of that judgment, he was examining the judgment and some time may be granted for the purpose.

Venugopal then said the Solicitor General has to clarify if it was covered directly or not.

To this, Mehta said it was not covered.

The bench said the only question was to see if the judgment does not cover the instant matter. The court fixed the matter for consideration on May 6 after it was also pointed out to the court that there were three writ petitions filed by Kerala and only one was listed before the bench.

In its April 8 judgment, a separate bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan declared that the Tamil Nadu Governor’s decision to withhold assent to 10 bills was "illegal" and "arbitrary" and fixed three months' timeline for the President to clear the bills.

Kerala government moved the apex court claiming inaction on the part of the Governor in relation with several bills passed by the state legislature and presented to the Governor for his assent under Article 200 of the Constitution.

In its plea, the state government sought a declaration that the actions of the Governor in withholding Bills indefinitely without exercising discretionary power under Article 200 of the Constitution are "contumacious, arbitrary, despotic and antithetical to the democratic values, ideals of the Cabinet form of Government, and principles of democratic Constitutionalism and federalism".