During the ongoing Supreme Court hearing on whether a time limit should be set for Governors and the President to approve bills, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta argued on Thursday that such matters fall within the political domain, not judicial intervention. He told the Constitution Bench that if a Governor withholds assent to a bill passed by the state assembly, the remedy lies in political processes, not in courts.
Mehta said Chief Ministers can take up the matter with the Prime Minister or the President, and solutions may be found through discussions or joint meetings. He stressed, “Every problem in this country cannot be solved by the courts. Some issues must be resolved within the system itself.”
The Constitution Bench, headed by Chief Justice B.R. Gavai and comprising Justices Surya Kant, Vikram Nath, P.S. Narasimha, and A.S. Chandurkar, heard the matter. Justice Surya Kant asked whether, in such cases, judicial review should be entirely excluded if a state approaches the court. In response, Mehta clarified that the Centre was not questioning judicial review of a Governor’s action but maintained that courts cannot impose a time-bound framework for Governors.
The hearing highlighted the constitutional debate on the balance of powers, with the Centre firmly opposing judicially fixed timelines for Governors’ assent to state bills.
