Vice-Chairman of the Telangana State Planning Board B. Vinod Kumar has requested the Law Commission of India to recommend to the Government of India to amend the term “as soon as possible” in Article 200 of the Constitution with more specific “within 30 days” or the time deemed fit by the Commission after studying the issue.
In a letter addressed to Chairman of the Law Commission Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi recently, Mr. Kumar said such an amendment had become necessary to make the institution of the Governor more accountable in the wake of the incidents of increasing friction between the offices of the Governor and an elected Government in a State.
He stated that he was disturbed, of late, with the deliberate delays by the Governors of several States in giving their assent to Bills passed by the State Legislatures. Citing Article 200 of the Constitution, he said the Governor has the right to give assent or reject a Bill. However, it was unfortunate that several Governors were just ignoring the Bills sent to them instead of giving assent or rejecting.
The Legislative Assemblies of Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and a few others had passed several important Bills and sent them to the Governors concerned for their assent. The undue delays in acting upon the Bills was causing irreparable loss to people, he explained.
Citing the example of Telangana, Mr. Kumar stated that a Bill on Universities Common Recruitment Board was submitted to the Governor in September 2022 but the Governor had not taken any action on it along with several Bills so far. The Bill, if cleared, would generated over 1,000 teaching posts in universities in the State.
He requested the institution (Law Commission) to study such lapses in the system and recommend to the Centre to amend Article 200 by replacing words “as soon as possible” with more specific “30 days” or any other time-limit felt appropriate so that the Governor system was made more accountable and they act upon the Bills sent to them in a time frame instead of just sitting over them with the help of “as soon as possible” provision.
