A five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court of India, headed by Chief Justice BR Gavai and comprising Justices Surya Kant, Vikram Nath, PS Narasimha and AS Chandurkar delivered its opinion on a presidential reference made under Article 143(1) by President Droupadi Murmu concerning the powers of governors, and by extension the president, with respect to bills passed by state legislatures.
The Court held that no fixed timelines can be imposed by courts on governors or the president for granting or withholding assent to bills.
At the same time, it made it clear that prolonged, unexplained and indefinite inaction by a governor could invite limited judicial intervention, confined to directing the governor to take a decision within a “reasonable time period” without the court making any observations on the merits of the exercise of that discretion.
The Supreme Court emphasised that when a bill is presented to a governor after being passed by the state legislature, the governor has only three constitutionally permissible courses of action: to grant assent, to withhold assent and return the bill to the legislature with a message for reconsideration, or to reserve the bill for the consideration of the president.
The Court held that governors enjoy discretion in choosing among these three options and that courts cannot interfere with the merits or wisdom of the choice made.
Crucially, the Constitution Bench rejected the concept of “deemed assent” arising from mere passage of time and overruled the approach of a two-judge Bench that had, on its own, cleared several Tamil Nadu Bills by treating the Governor’s prolonged inaction as deemed assent.
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The Court, however, stressed that governors cannot sit indefinitely on bills or use delay to frustrate the legislative process. It observed that “it is against the interest of federalism if the Governor, without following due process under Article 200, is allowed to withhold Bills passed by the assembly.” In glaring circumstances of inaction that is prolonged, unexplained and indefinite, courts may intervene, but only to the extent of requiring the Governor to decide the matter within a reasonable time period.
The Bench underlined that imposing rigid timelines on constitutional functionaries such as the Governor or the President would be contrary to the elasticity provided by the Constitution in a democratic polity. It observed that “restriction on powers of governors and presidents is antithetical to the spirit of the Constitution and doctrine of basic structure.” The court further warned that declaring a bill to have received deemed assent because of delay would amount to the judiciary usurping executive functions, adding that “a verdict granting deemed assent of a bill by a court is a virtual takeover of constitutional function.”
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The presidential reference had been sent in May by President Droupadi Murmu under Article 143(1) seeking clarification on whether courts can prescribe time limits for the President and Governors to act on Bills. It was prompted by the Supreme Court’s April 8 ruling criticising Tamil Nadu Governor R.N. Ravi for delaying deciding on several state bills.
After pronouncing the opinion, Chief Justice B.R. Gavai described the verdict as unanimous and thanked his brother judges — Justice Surya Kant (CJI-designate), Justices Vikram Nath, P.S. Narasimha and A.S. Chandurkar — stating, “I must thank each of my brother judges … for their collective efforts in crafting this unanimous opinion. We wanted to speak in one voice.”
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Union government and the President, expressed gratitude, stating, “On behalf of the President and the Union government, I express gratitude for this illuminating judgement.” Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who had opposed the reference, also welcomed the ruling, describing it as “a very circumspect and thoughtful judgement.”
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