Guv's office must act as per parliamentary democracy: SC

IN a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court said that if the President withholds assent on a bill sent by a governor for consideration, the state governments have the liberty to approach the Supreme Court directly.

- SUCHITRA KALYAN MOHANTY @ New Delhi

The court made the observation on a plea by the Tamil Nadu government alleging a delay in granting consent to bills passed by the assembly.

"We are in no way undermining the office of the Governor. All we say is that the Governor must act with due deference to the settled conventions of parliamentary democracy, respecting the will of the people expressed through the legislature and the elected government responsible to the people. He must perform his role of a friend, philosopher and guide with dispassion, guided not by considerations of political expediency but by the sanctity of the constitutional oath he undertakes," a two-judge bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan said.