Governor Arif Mohammad Khan on Friday said he would seek a report from Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan as to why the State government had kept him in the dark about its decision to challenge the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) in the Supreme Court (SC).
Speaking to reporters in New Delhi, Mr. Khan held Mr. Vijayan responsible for the “lapse” and said he had a legal obligation to ensure that the “Constitutional machinery in the State did not collapse”.
Mr. Khan appeared to have ratcheted up his dispute with the government over the CAA in the run-up to his Republic Day address and the opening of the budget session of the Assembly on January 31. He has also apparently taken the fight to the doorstep of Mr. Vijayan.
The Chief Minister was “duty-bound” under the Rules of Business of the government to submit specified category of cases that concerned Centre-State relations or involved the Supreme Court to the Governor before he took any decision on the matter.
“I am the Constitutional head of the government. The buck has to stop somewhere,” he said.
Some might argue that the State merely required to keep the Governor involved. “Even if we accepted that argument, I was not even informed that the government is going to the Supreme Court to challenge a Central law, which is none of the concern of the State,” he said.
‘Nobody is supreme’
The Chief Minister should decide who was responsible for the breach. “He should realise that we are not living in the colonial period. Nobody is supreme. Be you ever so high, the law is still higher than thee,” he said. Mr. Vijayan had on Thursday taken an oblique dig at Mr. Khan by stating that the era of British Residency and Regent were over.
Mr. Khan said the business of the government should not be held ransom to the whims and fancies of an individual or a political party. The Chief Minister should not think he has the “right to distort rules simply because he is in that position.” He hoped the government would reform itself.
