Even as the NEET exemption Bill, resent by the Tamil Nadu Assembly to Governor R.N. Ravi early last month, is awaiting his approval for being forwarded to President Ram Nath Kovind, the recommendations of the Punchhi Commission on Centre-State Relations should be revealing.
Constituted by the United Progressive Alliance government in 2007 under the chairmanship of former Chief Justice of India M. M. Punchhi, the commission, which submitted its report in 2010, held that if a Bill was, on reconsideration as indicated by the Governor, passed by the State legislature again, with or without amendments, “the Governor is obliged to give his assent. Furthermore, it is necessary to prescribe a time limit within which the Governor should take the decision whether to grant assent or to reserve it for consideration of the President”.
One of its recommendations was that the time limit of six months, prescribed in the Constitution for the State legislature to act on the President’s message on a reserved Bill, should be the time limit for the President to decide on assenting or withholding of assent. Pointing this out, the commission suggested that “the Governor accordingly should make his decision on the Bill within a maximum period of six months after submission to him”.
The commission added that “when the State Legislature reconsiders and passes the Bill (with or without amendments) after it is returned by the Governor pursuant to the direction of the President, the President should be bound to grant his assent”. It also reiterated several recommendations of the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRWC), which was formed by the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government in 2000 and completed its work in two years.
The NCRWC had laid down a time-limit of four months within which the Governor should take a decision whether to grant assent or reserve it for the consideration of the President. It had also suggested the removal of the power of Governor, as provided in Article 200, to withhold assent for a piece of legislation and reserve a Bill for the consideration of the President except in cases as stipulated in the Constitution.
The Punchhi Commission even felt that the NCRWC’s recommendations “require immediate implementation and should be brought in by way of a constitutional amendment”.
In the last 12 years, many deliberations took place at different levels on the Punchhi Commission’s recommendations on a whole gamut of issues concerning the Centre-State relations, but there had not been much progress in their implementation.
