Four bills — regarding gurbani telecast and removing Gov as state varsities’ VC — come under cloud

The four bills passed by the Punjab Vidhan Sabha in its two-day “special session” over a month back was virtually put on hiatus on Monday with the Governor Banwarilal Purohit dubbing the session as “patently illegal”.

The Governor, in his second letter within a week’s time, also issued a stern warning to the Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann to respond to his “love letters” which are “lying unattended” with him, while reminding him of his “constitutional duty” to respond to his letters.

Mincing no words, Purohit said that he had been receiving “various complaints of corruption” against the government, while also reminding Mann that the Governor is a constitutional authority appointed by the President, and “entrusted with duty to ensure a just, fair, and honest administration and has to see that the governance is corruption free”.

Notably, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) – dominated House, during the two-day special session on June 19 and 20, had passed four bills, including the one aimed at freeing the undue control of a television channel over the rights to telecast gurbani kirtan from the Golden Temple (the Sikh Gurdwaras (Amendment) Bill, 2023), and the other to appoint the Chief Minister as the Chancellor of the state’s universities replacing the Governor (The Punjab University Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2023). Another bill — The Punjab Police (Amendment) Bill, 2023 — was also passed to set up an independent mechanism for the selection and appointment of suitable persons to the post of the Director General of Police, apart from The Punjab Affiliated Colleges (Protection of Services) Amendment Bill, 2023.

Days after the session, all the four Bills were sent to the Governor for his assent. Upon receiving the bills, the Governor had then made it clear that he would first examine the constitutional legality of the session, before giving nod to the Bills.

At that time, Purohit had also maintained that he wanted to see if the special session was an extension of the Budget session, because the Vidhan Sabha was not prorogued. “If it was an extension, then we need to examine if Bills could be passed, or the proceedings had to be restricted only to the budget related business,” the Governor had then stated.

Purohit’s letter came two days after Mann had stated that it was “very unfortunate” that the Governor did not know whether the June 19-20 session was legal or illegal.

The Governor, in his letter on Monday, told the Chief Minister that he has taken the legal opinion from “one of the leading constitutional expert”. Also attaching the “crux of the opinion”, the Governor pointed out that it “clearly mentions that the House, so summoned, was patently illegal. Now, nothing remains to be responded to your comments”.

Purohit’s response came to the Chief Minister’s July 15 letter in which he asked the Governor to give his assent to a bill regarding free gurbani telecast from the alleged monopoly of a television channel linked to the family of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal.

Once again reminding the Chief Minister of his “unattended” letters, Purohit told Mann that he was “duty bound to furnish the information sought by the Governor. Non supply of the information is a clear violation of the Article 167 of the constitution”.

“During the debate in the assembly, you have taken pot-shots about the Governor, which is not liked by the people as the utterances by the Chief Minister are not befitting to the post,” the Governor wrote.

In his earlier letter on July 17, Purohit had stated that the calling of the Assembly session was likely a “breach of law and procedure”, and indicated that he may not sign off soon on the Bills passed during that sitting of the House.

“Since I am receiving complaints of corruption, I urge upon you to give me the reply at the earliest without fail. Otherwise, it will be deemed as gross violation of the Constitution”

Also questioning the legality of the Bills, Purohit had also said that he was actively considering seeking the Attorney General’s advice on them or referring them to the President.

As per the legal opinion, a copy of which was attached by the Governor with his letter, it is within the Speaker’s power to adjourn the meeting of House sine-die. “But once the business of the meeting is over and nothing remains to be transacted, the meeting cannot be artificially kept alive,” it said.

“Once the business of the House, as specified in the list of business to be transacted is over, the business of the meeting itself has come to an end. Unless it is evident that some aspect of business specified on the list of business remained incomplete, there would survive no cause to permit the Speaker to adjourn the meeting, much less adjourn it sine- die,” read the attached document.

Citing June 14 letter of Punjab Vidhan Sabha secretary, the opinion said that it is clear that the business of the adjourned meeting summoned was not connected with the Budget, and in fact there existed no unfinished agenda which required the meeting.

This reveals that there was no justification to adjourn the Budget session sine die when no business remained, or that even after three months, no urgent new business necessitated such an invocation of the adjourned meeting, much less as an extension of the Budget session, it stated.

“The prejudice caused by not proroguing the House and by adjourning it sine die can be seen from the effect it has had on the Bills passed. Had the House been prorogued after the Budget session and had these Bills not been rushed through the adjourned meeting, they would have had to wait till the Monsoon session to come up before the House,” it said, adding, “This would have enabled the Bills to be properly studied and debated before they were enacted into laws,” it stated.

Thus, apart from the “patent illegality” that these Bills did not concern the Budget and could never be treated as an extension of the Budget session, the greater flaw in the procedure was that the law was pushed through the legislature without public consultation or debate or taking into account the view of the stakeholders, the legal opinion said.