{"id":240659,"date":"2023-05-02T20:05:21","date_gmt":"2023-05-02T14:35:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=240659"},"modified":"2023-05-03T17:14:38","modified_gmt":"2023-05-03T11:44:38","slug":"the-importance-of-constitutional-punctuality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-importance-of-constitutional-punctuality\/","title":{"rendered":"The importance of constitutional punctuality"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source-<\/strong> The post is based on the article \u201cThe importance of constitutional punctuality\u201d published in \u201cThe Hindu\u201d on 1st May 2023.<\/p>\n

Syllabus: <\/strong>GS2- Issues related to federalism<\/p>\n

Relevance<\/strong>– Office of governor<\/p>\n

News<\/strong>– Recently, the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly passed a resolution seeking to provide for a time frame for Governors to act on Bills passed by the State Legislature.<\/p>\n

Why does the governor withholding the bill passed by assembly is against the spirit of the constitution?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

When the Constitution was adopted, some of the sovereign functions<\/strong> were retained for the sake of continuity in governance. There was no time limit fixed for various authorities to discharge duties. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Drafters of the Constitution assumed that nominated governors will discharge sovereign duties beyond the confines of political partisanship.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Article 200 <\/strong>of the Constitution limits the options before the Governor to give assent to the Bill sent by the legislature, or withhold assent, or reserve a Bill for the consideration of the President<\/strong>. Governors have wrongly understood this function as some discretionary responsibility. <\/strong><\/p>\n

However, a composite reading of the debates in the Constituent Assembly provides a different interpretation.<\/p>\n

The original draft Article 175 moved for discussion provided discretion to the Governor <\/strong>to return the Bill.<\/p>\n

While moving the amendment to this Article, B.R. Ambedkar said that there can be no room for a Governor acting on discretion\u201d<\/strong> and recommended removing the discretion. <\/strong><\/p>\n

A simple reading of the Article is sufficient to show that the meaning of the phrase \u201cwithholds assent therefrom\u201d<\/strong> has been misinterpreted to mean holding back the Bill. <\/strong><\/p>\n

What are practices followed in other countries regarding the veto of the bill?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In the United Kingdom, there has been no royal veto<\/strong> since 1708. In the United States, there is a time limit of 10 days<\/strong> for the President to give assent or veto a bill. If the President does not sign or vetoes the Bill within this time, it automatically becomes an Act.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What are the views of higher courts on authorities discharging their functions without any regard for a time limit?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The Supreme Court in Shamsher Singh & Anr vs State Of Punjab<\/em> (1974)<\/strong>, held that the discretion of the Governor<\/strong> is extremely limited<\/strong>. Even in rare cases, the governor shall act in a manner that is not detrimental to the interest of the state. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the Governor shall<\/strong> only act on the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Supreme Court, in Keisham Meghachandra Singh vs The Hon\u2019ble Speaker Manipur<\/em> (2020), <\/strong>asked the Speaker of the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly to decide on the disqualification petitions under the 10th Schedule of the Constitution<\/strong> within a period of four weeks.<\/p>\n

In the case filed by the State of Telangana against the Governor, the Supreme Court acknowledged that the words in Article 200<\/strong>, \u201cas soon as possible after the presentation of the Bill\u201d<\/strong>, are important. Governors should necessarily bear this in mind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source- The post is based on the article \u201cThe importance of constitutional punctuality\u201d published in \u201cThe Hindu\u201d on 1st May 2023. Syllabus: GS2- Issues related to federalism Relevance– Office of governor News– Recently, the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly passed a resolution seeking to provide for a time frame for Governors to act on Bills passed… Continue reading The importance of constitutional punctuality<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[11500,8696,212,10498],"class_list":["post-240659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-governor-assent-to-bills","tag-governor-related-issues","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240659\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}