Indicating that his tussle with the State government could rage on, Governor Arif Mohammed Khan on Thursday said it was the constitutional duty of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and not any of the other Ministers to brief him on the eight Bills that were pending before him.
He spelt out his stance after his arrival in Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday shortly before he was scheduled to meet a Ministerial delegation at Raj Bhavan to seek clarifications on the eight contentious Bills that awaited his assent.
Law Minister P. Rajeeve, Higher Education Minister R. Bindu, Cooperation Minister V.N. Vasavan, Dairy Development Minister J. Chinchurani, and Sports Minister V. Abdurahiman met the Governor in a bid to impress upon him the significance of the laws. They also joined the Governor for dinner after the discussions. The outcome of the meeting was yet to be known.
While interacting with mediapersons, he accused Mr. Vijayan of failing to keep him abreast of the affairs of the State. “It is the Chief Minister’s constitutional duty to brief me not only about these Bills, even otherwise. This is not the job of the Ministers,” he said.
Mr. Khan found fault with the government’s handling of the issue. He alleged the government wrote to him nearly four months after he first sought clarification on the Bills. While no request had earlier been made in writing to seek an appointment, Mr. Khan said “one of the Chief Minister’s private secretaries” had called him for the purpose on October 22. The appointment that had been sought for three Ministers was not granted in the absence of a formal request.
Referring to the Kerala Lok Ayukta (Amendment) Bill, he said the proposed legislation would enable the government to decide if complaints (against itself) should be looked into or not. “You cannot be a judge in your own cause,” he remarked as he indicated his stance on the controversial amendment. He added that he would adhere to his mandate by preventing anything that contradicted the Constitution.
The Governor was also critical of Mr. Vijayan’s disapproval of the criminalisation of triple talaq at the launch of the CPI(M)’s Janakeeya Prathirodha Yatra in Kasaragod a few days ago. “EMS (Namboodiripad) must be turning in his grave. He had gone out of his way to support me when I had spoken against the practice of triple talaq. Besides, the Left parties have always supported efforts to implement a Uniform Civil Code,” he claimed, while alleging there were political motives behind the “new strategy”.
