Punjab to move Supreme Court as guv says assembly session illegal | India News

CHANDIGARH: Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann announced in the Vidhan Sabha on Friday that the AAP government had decided to move the Supreme Court on October 30 against governor Banwarilal Purohit’s ‘dictatorial’ decision not to clear pending bills by declaring the assembly session “patently illegal”.
The governor had on Thursday written to the chief minister withholding his approval to three money bills, saying: “In the event of the persistence of the government to continue with the patently illegal session, I would be compelled to consider an appropriate course of action, including to report the matter to the President of India.”
Mann underlined that the Punjab government would not present any bill in the assembly until the Supreme Court decided on the matter and proposed to speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan that he adjourn the session sine die on the first day itself although the House had been convened for two days. Thereafter, on the speaker’s directions, parliamentary affairs minister Balkar Singh moved a proposal to adjourn the House sine die, which was passed by a majority.
The chief minister added that once the Supreme Court provided clarity on the matter, the Punjab government would reconvene the session in November and table the three money bills. He said the state government had proposed to introduce three financial bills in the House for enhancing state’s revenue but the governor “back-stabbed Punjab is by squatting over them”.
Congress MLA Pargat Singh said they were with the CM on the governor issue, but when the speaker, as the custodian of the House, had declared the the assembly session legal, the state government should have continued with it rather than adjourning it sine die.