TRS writes to Law Commission; wants state governors to act on bills within 30 days

The Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) has urged the Law Commission of India to recommend an amendment to Article 200 of the Constitution to make state governors act on a bill within a month's time.

The party wants the term "as soon as possible" replaced with more specific wording like "within 30 days".

TRS senior leader Vinod Kumar wrote to Law Commission chairman Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi pointing that “of late, there have been deliberate delays by the governors of various states in providing assent to bills passed by their respective State Legislatures”.

According to Article 200, the Governor has the right to assent or reject a bill.

“The legislative assemblies of Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala etc have passed several important bills and sent the same to their State Governors for assent. I am pained to note that the governors are unduly delaying to act upon these bills. This attitude of the Constitutional Head is causing irreparable loss to the nation's people,” Kumar, vice-chairman, Telangana State Planning Board, said in the letter dated November 23.

The missive was sent in the wake of a showdown between the Telangana governor Tamilisai Soundararajan and CM K Chandrasekhar Rao's office over a bill.

The Telangana Universities Common Recruitment Board Bill 2022, Kumar said, was submitted to the Governor for her perusal a few months ago “but unfortunately no action has been taken so far”.

“The bill, if cleared, will generate more than 1,000 jobs of Assistant Professors in Telangana. I am confident that many other states have tabled such bills that are lying at the apathy of their respective governors.”

The former Lok Sabha MP opines that some governors are not acting upon these bills “as there is no specific time frame/ turnaround time.”

Kumar says that the term "as soon as possible" under Article 200 “seems very vague and lacks a specific time frame".

“Framers of our Constitution would never have envisaged that such a situation would arise where a Governor openly contradicts the policy/ bills of the elected state government by indefinitely delaying assent. I strongly urge you to look into this matter and request you to recommend the Government of India to amend the term in the Article 200 of the Constitution from "as soon as possible" to "Within 30 days This change will bring a lot more accountability in the system at the highest level,” the former legislator says in his appeal to the Law Commission.

The TRS leader also pointed out that “states ruled by BJP do not face any such issues with Governors”.

"It is only the non-BJP states like Telangana that have to bear the brunt of such delays. Article 1 of the Indian constitution states that India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States. I wish to inform you that limiting the growth of one state shall definitely limit the growth of the overall nation,” wrote Kumar.