New Delhi:
Congress MP and lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi has termed Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar’s criticism of the Supreme Court as a matter which “absolutely needed no comment” from the holder of the second-highest constitutional office.
Vice President Dhankhar criticised the Supreme Court’s judgment that set deadlines for the President to clear bills passed by state assemblies, and also the use of extraordinary powers by the Supreme Court under Article 142 of the Constitution.
“With the deepest respect to him, I would disagree with almost all aspects of this. And the first aspect I would disagree with is that the Vice President is the holder of a very, very high office, indeed the second-highest constitutional office in the country. There is absolutely no need for him to comment or deal with such matters. This is my humble opinion,” Mr Singhvi told NDTV on Friday.
“The President of India does not comment on such things and on this issue, there is no difference between the President and the Vice President. Previous incumbents of the office have not commented on such issues and there is no reason to start this process,” the Congress MP said.
In a hearing on the tussle between the Tamil Nadu Governor and the ruling DMK government over bills passed by the assembly, the Supreme Court on April 12 said the President should decide on bills reserved for her consideration by the Governor within three months from the date on which such a reference is received.
The Supreme Court used its plenary power under Article 142 of the Constitution to make the bill re-presented to the Tamil Nadu Governor as deemed to have been passed.
“The next in the warrant of precedent, the Prime Minister doesn’t comment on these issues and he should not. So I think that is really not necessary. Before I tell you other aspects of what Article 142 is and why in the facts of this case, where I happen to be the lead counsel, what the Supreme Court did was eminently reasonable, necessary and required to be done…” Mr Singhvi told NDTV.
Mr Singhvi supported the Supreme Court’s use of the powers under Article 142 in giving “full and complete justice”.
“Before we turn to the case at hand where this judgment came, any important question is what is Article 142? The Vice President has said that [Article] 142 could have become a misguided, unguided missile etc. But we forget that [Article] 142 is a venerable old power, put in our Constitution by the framers, people far wiser than us, led by Babasaheb Ambedkar, the drafting committee, and various other members of the Constituent Assembly.
“It is a power given 75 years ago when it was being considered to be given exclusively to the Supreme Court, not to any high court. It is a recognition of the entrustment of what is called a special, a unique and a sui generis power, only to the Supreme Court to do full and complete justice, even beyond the law, even beyond the text of the law. The idea is that you will be able to tailor, modulate and, you know, create a relief which will do justice in all respects,” Mr Singhvi told NDTV.
The Congress MP said this power [Article 142] is not something new, and so it would be wrong to question this power.
“I must add here, this power has been exercised for the last 75 years repeatedly. And once or twice when the power was exercised in the early years, subsequent judgments have put guidelines and various criteria. So it’s not a lawless power. It’s not an uncontrolled power. It’s been confined, clarified, cribbed and conditioned by the Supreme Court itself. So to suggest it is kind of a Jungle Raj power is not right,” he said.
In the Tamil Nadu case, the Supreme Court had previously framed questions to answer in the dispute between the state government and the Governor over the delay in assent to bills passed by the assembly.
The delay by the Governor prompted the state government to file a petition in the Supreme Court in 2023, claiming 12 bills, including one from 2020, were pending with him.
On November 13, 2023, the Governor declared he was withholding assent to 10 bills following which the assembly convened a special session and re-enacted the very same bills on November 18, 2023.
Later, some of the bills were reserved for the President’s consideration.
