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Synopsis

The Supreme Court today observed that Governors have to do some soul searching and they have to realise that they are not elected representatives.

"Why do parties have to move the supreme court now..the governor and Chief Ministers have to deal with this..", remarked the CJI while hearing a plea by the Punjab Government against their Governor not giving assent to Bills pending before him.

Senior Advocate AM Singhvi told the bench that seven bills were pending before the Governor.

Asking the Governor to respond in the matter, the bench also comprising Justices Padiwala and Manoj Misra has kept the issue on Friday for consideration.

Notably, Senior Advocate KK Venugopal also mentioned the same issue with Kerala where the Governor has kept 3 welfare bills pending for over two years.

"He says we will fight it out in court..please keep this as well on Friday..", Venugopal submitted.

CJI then asked the senior counsel to get one of his juniors to mention the plea which would be taken up in due course.

Recently, Kerala Government had approached the Supreme Court seeking appropriate orders in relation to the inaction on the part of the Governor of the State in relation to as many as 8 Bills passed by the State Legislature and presented to the Governor for his assent under Article 200 of the Constitution.

Of these, 3 Bills have remained pending with the Governor for more than 2 years, and 3 more in excess of a full year, the plea submitted.

Few days back, the Tamil Nadu Government had also moved the Supreme Court over the inaction, omission, delay and failure to comply with the constitutional mandate by the Governor of Tamil Nadu to give his assent to the Bills passed and forwarded by the Tamil Nadu State Legislature to him.

Tamil Nadu has told Court that the non-consideration of files, Government orders and policies forwarded by the State Government for his signature is unconstitutional, illegal, arbitrary, unreasonable besides malafide exercise of power.

In April this year, Supreme Court had disposed of a similar plea filed by the Telangana government seeking a direction to Governor Soundararajan to give her assent to bills passed by the State Legislature which were pending before her, after noting that "no bills were pending before her at the moment."

Case Title: State of Punjab Vs Governor