SC response to Presidential reference 'deplorable, shocking': CPI(M) General Secretary
New Delhi (PTI) The Communist Party of India (Marxist) General Secretary MA Baby on Thursday said the Supreme Court's response to the Presidential Reference on timelines to grant assent to Bills was "deplorable and shocking".
President Droupadi Murmu had, exercising her power under the rarely used Article 143 (1),
posed 14 crucial questions before the top court over its April 8 verdict, which imposed a three-month deadline for the President and governors on dealing with Bills placed before them for assent, or consideration.
After deliberating on the Presidential Reference, a five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice B R Gavai on Thursday opined that timelines cannot be fixed for the President and the governors for granting assent to Bills passed by state assemblies.
In an X post, the CPI(M) general secretary said, "The Supreme Court's answer in response to the Presidential Reference is deplorable and shocking. Courts should not hesitate to play a meaningful role in ensuring proper checks and balances between the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary."
Baby said that while on one hand the Supreme Court has said that timelines cannot be set for granting assent to bills, on the other, it said that the court can exercise a "limited power of judicial review to direct the governor to decide in a time-bound manner".
"Now, who will decide what is a time-bound manner?!! Judiciary should not absolve itself of its constitutional responsibility," Baby asked.
In its unanimous opinion on the Presidential Reference, the bench held that the Supreme Court cannot grant "deemed assent" as it would amount to virtual takeover of the role of a separate constitutional authority.
The bench also ruled that the governors do not have "unfettered" powers to sit over the Bills for "perpetuity" as they have only three options -- either to grant assent, or refer the Bills to the President, or withhold assent and send back them to the assemblies for reconsideration under Article 200.
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Nitish likely to resign as Bihar CM after last meeting of cabinet on April 14
Patna (PTI): Bihar inched towards a political transition on Sunday with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar convening a meeting of his cabinet on April 14, following which the JD(U) president is likely to relinquish the post to make way for a BJP-led government.
According to a notification issued by the cabinet secretariat department, the meeting will take place at 11 am, after which the longest-serving CM of the state, who got elected to the Rajya Sabha last week, was expected to submit his resignation to Governor Syed Ata Hasnain.
Earlier, Kumar's close aide and JD(U) national working president Sanjay Kumar Jha had told reporters that the process of formation of a new government was likely to "roll out after April 13".
Meanwhile, the BJP, which has been approaching the prospect of having its first- ever chief minister in the state with considerable restraint, got down to business and named Shivraj Singh Chouhan as a "central observer", who would oversee the change of guard.
A statement issued by the BJP headquarters in Delhi said the parliamentary board has appointed Chouhan, a Union minister and a multiple-term former CM of Madhya Pradesh, as “central observer for electing the leader of legislature party in Bihar”.
Senior JD(U) leader and Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, had said here earlier in the day "the new chief minister will be elected by the NDA, upon the recommendation of the BJP, which has a big role to play".
Speculations are doing the rounds that Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary, who holds the crucial Home portfolio in the outgoing government, is the frontrunner among contenders for the top job.
BJP leaders in the state, who have been making frantic visits to Delhi in the recent past, are keeping their cards close to the chest.
"Who will be the next CM is a decision to be taken by our central leadership," minister Dilip Jaiswal, who is a former state BJP president, had said a day ago, adding, "I am not at all in the race".
Other than Choudhary, who had joined the BJP less than a decade ago, those whose names are doing the rounds include Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai and state ministers Lakhendra Paswan and Shreyasi Singh.
According to BJP sources, all these leaders fit the bill in different ways. Choudhary is a ‘Koeri’, and his elevation could ensure that the ‘Luv Kush’ (Kurmi Koeri) equation nurtured by Kumar during his 20-year-rule remained intact in favour of the NDA, after the JD(U) supremo's departure.
Rai is a Yadav and brings the promise of support of the largest caste group in Bihar, which has been with Lalu Prasad's RJD, the BJP's principal rival in the state, for decades.
Paswan is a Dalit and his elevation could help the BJP transcend its "pro-upper caste" image, which brings its own disadvantages in the Hindi heartland, where the Mandal agitation of the 1990s has cast a long shadow, the sources said.
Singh, in her 30s, is an upper caste Rajput, but her elevation could be projected as the party giving preference to young blood.
Moreover, the party has also been trying to present itself as a champion of gender equality, by pushing through the ‘Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam’ that ensures 33 per cent reservation to women in both Houses of Parliament.
However, the BJP sources admitted that there was a strong possibility of the central leadership springing a "surprise", citing examples of many states ruled by the party, where less fancied leaders have landed the top job in the recent past.
Actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha, a Trinamool Congress MP who spent nearly three decades in the BJP, had said, while commenting on the political situation in Bihar that "we have plenty of deserving people here but we must be beware of a baba who may arrive with a parchi".
The allusion was to Rajasthan, where Bhajan Lal Sharma was named the chief minister two years ago at a legislature party meeting, where Defence Minister Rajnath Singh was seen on camera taking out a piece of paper with the name of the first-term MLA written on it.
