Chennai: Making a climb down following the Supreme Court's strong criticism, Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi has extended an invite to Chief Minister MK Stalin for talks 'to resolve pending issues' on the Raj Bhavan granting assent to Bills passed by the state assembly. The Bills have been pending for months, forcing the state government to move the apex court.
The government said the Chief Minister had accepted the invite, indicating a thaw in the relationship. However, an early meeting of the Governor and the Chief Minister is not on the cards since the administration is busy with the relief and restoration works in the state capital and three adjoining districts, battered by cyclone Michaung. According to Government sources, the date for the meeting of the two constitutional functionaries is being worked out.
From asserting that if a Bill adopted by the assembly is withheld, the legislation is dead and 'withheld' is a decent language of conveying it, now the Governor had been forced to give up his confrontationist attitude and engage the elected government. Interestingly, the invite from Raj Bhavan comes a day after the Tamil Nadu government moved the Supreme Court, seeking to declare as unconstitutional, arbitrary and illegal the Governor reserving 10 Bills, re-adopted by the assembly, for the President's consideration. In an application, the state had sought permission to add this prayer to the pending suit against the Governor.
The 10 Bills, re-passed by the assembly after being returned by the Raj Bhavan, remove the Governor from the office of Chancellor of state-run universities, vested with the power to appoint Vice-Chancellors. With this, the ongoing turf war between the DMK government and the Raj Bhavan reached a crescendo, with the latter maintaining that these Bills were contrary to UGC regulations. Further, he also issued unilateral notifications on constituting selection committees for identifying VCs for two universities, though the statutes of the respective varsities do not grant him such powers.
