The Tamil Nadu government on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court seeking to declare non-compliance of the constitutional mandate by Governor R N Ravi in considering the bills passed by the state legislature as “unconstitutional” and “arbitrary” besides being a “malafide exercise of power”.

It also sought direction to the Governor to dispose of all the bills, files and government orders forwarded to him by the state assembly within a specified timeframe.

The state government also sought framing of guidelines stipulating the outer time limit for the Governor to consider bills, files, policies and government orders sent for assent/signature in discharge of his constitutional functions.

“He (Governor) has positioned himself as a political rival to the legitimately elected government by hindering and obstructing the Legislative Assembly’s ability to carry out its duties by unjustly and excessively delaying the consideration of the bills that the Assembly has passed,” the government said in its plea.

“The Governor by not signing remission orders, day-to-day files, appointment orders, approving recruitment orders, granting approval to prosecute ministers, MLAs involved in corruption, including transfer of investigation to CBI, among others, is bringing the entire administration to a grinding halt and creating adversarial attitude by not cooperating with the state administration,” it said.

The M K Stalin-led government, in its petition, also said various applications for appointment of the chairman and members of the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (TNPSC) are still pending with the Governor.

“According to TNPSC Regulations, 1954, the Commission shall consist of a chairman and 14 members, but despite the same, the body is functioning with a mere strength of four members where one of the members is holding the additional charge of TNPSC chairman,” it said.

The petition further pointed out that frequent reminders were sent to the principal secretary to the Governor along with a copy of the TNPSC Regulations on August 17 for carrying out these appointments, but the Governor returned the file on September 27 with a note raising some queries that are against established practices for selection of constitutional posts.

The government, the petition said, returned the proposal with due justification on October 10 “which was again returned wrongfully without proper reasoning on October 27.”

“… in view of the attendant circumstances, the state has no other alternative or efficacious remedy except to approach the top court by invoking Article 32 of the Constitution of India,” it added.