Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan has responded to the Chief Minister’s letter regarding the deadlock over convening a special one-day session of the Legislative Assembly for discussing and passing a resolution against the farm laws brought in by the Union Government. The Governor, in his letter, has said that while he agrees that the “Question of summoning Assembly under rule 3(2) of Rules of procedure and conduct of business in the Kerala Legislative Assembly is concerned, Governor is bound by the decision of the Cabinet,” he alleges that “It became clear that this special Session was to discuss a problem for which you have no jurisdiction to offer any solution.”
The Governor says that the Chief Minister asked for a special session to be convened to discuss serious issues and did not elaborate on the same. "When I requested you to spell out the reasons clearly which necessitated the summoning of the Assembly emergently, what I meant was to delineate the specific issues or circumstances that arose unexpectedly and not general description as to the sector to which these issues belong. In fact, if some serious issues in the agricultural sector have arisen and the farming community in Kerala is facing problems, then it would be desirable to know what immediate steps the government has taken to resolve these issues and help the farmers in our state," the letter says.
The Governor says that upon asking what the serious issue was, the CM opened up partially and admitted that the important issue referred to was “the ongoing protest by farmers” around Delhi.
"What I wanted to know specifically was “what happened between 17 December, 2020, when you had decided to summon the session on 8 January 2021, the decision that was approved by me and 21 December 2020 when you decided to withdraw the earlier decision and sent a fresh proposal to summon emergent session of the Assembly on 23.12.2020”. However, you chose to ignore my queries and have not explained the factors that gave rise to an emergency like situation till date," the Governor said.
In his letter, Pinarayi Vijayan had called the refusal anti-constitutional and had said that it was a violation of sub-section 174(1) of the Constitution. He had further alleged that the Governor has no discretionary power to convene or to adjourn the Assembly session. The CM had stated that the “The state cabinet has recommended to convene a special session of the Legislative Assembly on December 23, 2020 to discuss serious issues in the agricultural sector and the problems faced by the farming community which are matters of general public interest,” as the reason for convening the emergency session.
Highlighting the reasons behind seeking reasons and clarification for calling the special one-day session of the Legislative Assembly, Governor Arif Mohammad says, “When a recommendation is made to summon a session at short notice or emergently and in the present case at a notice of about 24 hours, that means departure from the rule requiring 15 days’ notice and invoking the proviso to rule 3, which is an exception to the rule, then it becomes duty of the gubernatorial office to ensure that departure from rule does not result in departure from the spirit of the rules of conduct of business”.
The Governor accuses Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan of being vague deliberately in the past too and alleges that when he has raised questions the CM takes shelter behind vague terms, like in the current case, “to discuss some serious issues”.
The Governor ends the letter with an attempt at reconciliation saying, “We may differ on certain issues but ultimately our goal is the same; To serve our Motherland that is Bharata.I hope despite some differences of opinion we shall always respect each other and never doubt the intentions of each other. I hold you in high esteem and would never like to be at loggerheads with you or my own government.”