No bill pending with Telangana Governor, says Raj Bhavan

Hyderabad: The office of Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan clarified on Monday that no bill is pending with her.

The Raj Bhavan issued a statement clarifying that as on date no bill is pending in the Governor’s office.

“Among bills, three bills cleared, two bills referred to Hon’ble President’s office. Rest of the Bills have been returned to Government with adequate explanation and message. This is issued for the information of public,” reads a statement issued by the Press Secretary.

“The Raj Bhavan requests the media to officially seek clarification from the Raj Bhavan before releasing any news related to Raj Bhavan,” it added.

A couple of days ago, state minister for industry and information technology K.T. Rama Rao had taken a dig at the Governor for delaying the approval of the bills sent by the state government.

The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) working President had stated that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should have advised the Governor who was delaying the exercise to fill up vacancies in universities by sitting on the bill.

KTR had made the comment while reacting to the PM’s speech at the Warangal public meeting on July 8.

Responding to Modi’s remarks on unemployment, KTR had said that the Union government failed to fill about 16 lakh vacancies in various departments but Modi was questioning the Telangana government, which had filled up 2.20 lakh vacancies in the state.

In April, the Supreme Court was informed that the Governor has given her assent to three bills. They are the Telangana Motor Vehicles Taxation (Amendment) Bill, Telangana Municipalities (Amendment Bill), and the Professor Jayashankar Telangana Agricultural University (Amendment) Bill.

The Governor sent the University of Forestry Telangana Bill and the Telangana Universities Common Recruitment Board Bill to the President of India for her consideration and assent.

The Supreme Court was told that the Telangana State Private Universities (Establishment and Regulation) (Amendment Bill, the Telangana Municipal Laws (Amendment) Bill and the Telangana Public Employment (Regulation of Age of Superannuation) (Amendment) Bill were under active consideration of the Governor.

She reportedly rejected the Telangana Public Employment (Regulation of Age of Superannuation) (Amendment) Bill.

The apex court was told that the Governor had sought certain clarification from the state government in regard to the Telangana Panchayat Raj (Amendment) Bill. It was also informed that the Azamabad Industrial Area (Termination and Regulation of Leases) (Amendment) Bill has not been submitted yet by the Law Department to the Governor for consideration.

 The Supreme Court was hearing a petition by the state government seeking direction to the Governor to take a decision on the Bills pending with her.