Indicating his disapproval of the Raj Bhavan making public the return of the NEET Exemption Bill to the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly, Speaker M. Appavu on Tuesday said “the persons concerned” should ponder over if it was appropriate to do so.
Placing before a special session of the House Governor R.N. Ravi’s letter to him dated February 1 on the reasons for returning the Bill, Mr. Appavu said after he received the letter from Raj Bhavan, he had directed the Assembly Secretary to send a copy of the same to all MLAs in a “confidential manner”.
“No one else was aware of this. I intended to disclose the contents only to the members because the development over a Bill adopted in the House should only be made known to the members. But, I was shocked to read the press release issued by the Raj Bhavan on February 3. Many enquired whether it was appropriate to publicise it,” the Speaker said.
A Bill [to dispense with NEET] was adopted unanimously in the House [in September] and sent to the Governor, and since there has been a delay [in deciding on it], only political parties and those affected by it have the absolute right in a democracy to criticise in public or stage a protest in a democratic manner, Mr. Appavu said.
“But those concerned should think as to whether it would be acceptable in a democracy to publicly release [operative contents of] a letter sent to the Assembly and trigger discussion, criticism and protests,” the Speaker said without naming anyone.
Mr. Appavu said that though as Speaker, he could not air his views publicly, but in the House, [he wished to record that] Article 200 of the Constitution mentioned that if a Bill was presented for the Governor’s assent, he could [decide on it] “as soon as possible”.
“The Bill was sent on September 13 [last year], and the reply was made on February 1. Is this the meaning of ‘as soon as possible’? Is this appropriate? One should think over it,” he added.
