Kerala opposes the presidential reference on the consent of the governors

The government of Kerala has opposed the presidential reference submitted for the Supreme Court with regard to deadlines for governors when granting consent to national accounts.

In his application submitted to the court, the State argued that the reference is “not maintained” and suffers from “serious legal gaps”.

Kerala argued that 11 of the 14 questions asked in the reference were already dealt with by the Supreme Court in its judgment in the Tamil Nadu government versus Governorzaak. Since the Union government has not submitted any evaluation or curative petition against that judgment, Kerala claimed that the center has effectively accepted the ruling.

Kerala stated that the judgment has not been attacked or reserved in a validly built up procedure that has reached finality and is binding on the basis of Article 141 of the Constitution. That is why it cannot be indirectly challenged by the current reference.

The State claimed that the Union government uses the reference as a device to reopen and dispute constitutional issues, without making it known that the APEX court has already ruled over them.

Kerala emphasized Article 144 and claimed that the President and the Council of Ministers are constitutionally bound to act in support of the Supreme Court, do not try to destroy her judgments on indirect resources.

Kerala also objected to the claim in the reference that Article 200 does not prescribe a timeline for governors to act on accounts. The State said that the Supreme Court has already clearly interpreted the provision, and the reference attempts to mislead the court to reconsider the permanent position.

Moving oppression of judicial precedent, incorrect interpretation of constitutional provisions and lack of transparency in the reference, Kerala urged the court to return the reference unanswered.

“This court cannot be appealed on appeal on his own judgments – and that authority cannot be established by the president on the basis of Article 143,” the State has submitted.

Kerala further argued that if the basis of the reference is inadequate and most questions have the goal of destroying existing judgments, the presence of two or three additional questions does not oblige the court to tackle one of them.

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