The short of it
- Tamil Nadu's Governor held back a set of university and other Bills for years. In April 2025 a two-judge bench declared ten of them law and set deadlines for Governors and the President.
- The Union argued the court had written in deadlines the Constitution left out. The President sent 14 questions to the Supreme Court under Article 143.
- In November 2025 a five-judge bench answered: courts cannot set timelines for Governors or the President, and there is no such thing as 'deemed assent'.
- But it also said a Governor has only three options, cannot sit on a Bill forever, and that long, unexplained silence can still be taken to court.
- For the exam, this is a live case study in Articles 200, 201, 142, 143 and 163, and in the push and pull of Indian federalism.
Ten Bills, one Governor, and a court that ran out of patience
Between January 2020 and April 2023, the Tamil Nadu Assembly passed twelve Bills that went to Raj Bhavan and did not come back. Most of them amended the state's university laws, and most of those did one thing: they moved the power to appoint vice-chancellors from the Governor, who is the chancellor of state universities, to the elected government.1
A Bill that the Governor neither signs nor rejects is a strange object. It has been debated, voted on and passed. It is not law. And there was nothing in the Constitution's text that said how long it could stay that way.
On 31 October 2023, the state took the Governor to the Supreme Court. Ten days later, the court called the pendency a matter of serious concern.1 That same day, in a separate case from Punjab, a bench led by the Chief Justice said a Governor who withholds assent must send the Bill back to the House, and cannot simply keep it.2
Within days of that hearing, Tamil Nadu's Governor announced he was withholding assent from ten of the Bills. The Assembly met in a special session and passed all ten again, word for word. Under Article 200, a Governor 'shall not withhold assent' from a Bill that comes back this way. The Governor instead reserved them for the President.3
A Bill the Governor neither signs nor rejects has been debated, voted on and passed. It is not law. Nothing in the text said how long it could stay that way.
On 8 April 2025, Justices J.B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan ruled for the state. Reserving Bills that had been passed a second time was, they said, illegal. And then the bench did something no court had done before: using Article 142, its power to do 'complete justice', it declared the ten Bills to have received assent from the day they were sent back to the Governor.3 Ten state laws came into force without anyone outside the Assembly signing them.
The bench also set the clock that the Constitution never had. A Governor acting on the cabinet's advice would get one month to withhold assent or reserve a Bill. Acting against that advice, three months. A re-passed Bill had to be signed within a month. And the President, when a Bill was reserved, would have three months to decide.4
Why the Constitution left the clock blank
To see why this fight was possible at all, read Article 200 slowly. When a state Bill reaches the Governor, the Governor can declare assent, withhold assent, or reserve the Bill for the President. A proviso adds that the Governor may, 'as soon as possible', return a non-money Bill with a message asking the House to reconsider it. If the House passes it again, the Governor shall not withhold assent.5
Every one of those steps has a verb. None has a deadline. The only time-bound phrase is 'as soon as possible', and it governs the return of a Bill, not the decision itself. Article 201, which covers Bills reserved for the President, gives the House six months to reconsider a Bill the President sends back, but gives the President no deadline at all.5
For most of the Republic's history the blank clock did not matter, because the Governor was understood to act on the advice of the state's council of ministers (Article 163). The seven-judge bench in Shamsher Singh (1974) said the President and Governors are constitutional heads who act on ministerial advice except in a narrow set of situations. In Nabam Rebia (2016), a Constitution Bench read the Governor's discretion narrowly again, in the Arunachal Pradesh crisis.
The commissions that studied Centre-state relations saw the problem coming. The Sarkaria Commission (1988) said reserving state Bills for the President should be rare. The Punchhi Commission (2010) went further and recommended a time limit, suggesting six months, for a Governor to decide on a Bill. Neither recommendation was written into the Constitution.
The numbers show how wide the gap had become. A PRS Legislative Research review of state laws passed in 2024 found that about 60% of Bills got the Governor's assent within a month, but about 18% took more than three months. In Himachal Pradesh, 72% of Bills crossed that three-month mark.6
- Shamsher Singh: President and Governors act on ministerial advice, with narrow exceptions
- Sarkaria Commission: reservation of state Bills should be rare
- Punchhi Commission recommends a time limit for Governors to decide on Bills
- Nabam Rebia: Governor's discretion read narrowly
- Tamil Nadu passes 12 Bills that stay pending with the Governor
- Tamil Nadu files writ petition in the Supreme Court
- Punjab judgment: a Governor who withholds assent must return the Bill
- Governor withholds assent to 10 Bills; Assembly re-passes them; Governor reserves them for the President
- Two-judge bench: reservation illegal, 10 Bills deemed assented, timelines set
- President refers 14 questions to the Supreme Court under Article 143(1)
- Five-judge bench hears the reference; opinion reserved
- Advisory opinion: no judicial timelines, no deemed assent, but no indefinite delay
An appeal in disguise, or a question the country needed answered?
The April judgment drew sharp criticism from the Union government. Then Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar publicly described Article 142 as having become 'a nuclear missile against democratic forces'. The argument from the Union's side was structural: the Constitution gives the President and Governors powers without deadlines, and a two-judge bench cannot write them in.
The government did not file a review petition. Instead, in May 2025, President Droupadi Murmu used Article 143(1), which lets the President ask the Supreme Court for its opinion on a question of law of public importance. The reference contained 14 questions, and it did not name the April judgment.7 Tamil Nadu told the Court it was an 'appeal in disguise': a way to reopen a decided case through the back door.8
That objection had real history behind it. In the 1991 Cauvery reference, the Court had said Article 143 cannot be used to sit in appeal over its own judgments. Presidents have used the advisory route only about fifteen times since 1950, from the Delhi Laws Act in 1951 to the Ayodhya reference in 1993.9
| Question | States (Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Punjab and others) | Union and Governors |
|---|---|---|
| Is there a deadline? | 'As soon as possible' and the duty to act imply a reasonable time, which courts can define | The Constitution deliberately set none; courts cannot add one |
| Who decides, Governor or cabinet? | Article 163 and Shamsher Singh: the Governor acts on the cabinet's advice | Article 200 builds in the Governor's own judgment, especially on reservation |
| Can a court grant assent? | Article 142 lets the Court do complete justice when an office refuses to act | Assent is a power of another constitutional office; a court cannot exercise it |
| Is the decision reviewable? | Any action of a constitutional authority is open to judicial review | Assent is part of law-making; courts review laws, not the steps before them |
A five-judge bench heard the reference over ten days, from late July to 11 September 2025: Chief Justice B.R. Gavai with Justices Surya Kant, Vikram Nath, P.S. Narasimha and A.S. Chandurkar.7 On 20 November 2025, days before the Chief Justice retired, it delivered its opinion.10
On the headline questions, it sided with the Union. Courts cannot prescribe timelines for the Governor or the President. There is no deemed assent, and Article 142 cannot be used to stand in for a Governor's decision. The Governor's and President's functions under Articles 200 and 201 are not justiciable in themselves: courts can examine a law once it is a law, not the steps before it. Nor does the President have to ask the Court's opinion every time a state Bill is reserved.1011
But the states did not leave with nothing. The bench said a Governor has exactly three options: assent, reserve for the President, or withhold assent and return the Bill to the House with comments. The proviso is not a fourth option, so there is no silent, permanent veto. And where there is prolonged, unexplained and indefinite inaction, a court can still issue a limited direction to the Governor to decide, without saying how or by when.11
The pocket veto is gone on paper. The deadline is gone too. What remains is a duty to act, enforced case by case.
What is settled, what is not, and why it will be asked
Read together, the two judgments leave a clearer rulebook than India had in 2023, but a slower remedy than the one states briefly had. A Governor cannot hold a Bill forever and cannot withhold it without sending it back. Yet a state facing delay must now go to court, prove that the delay is long and unexplained, and win an order that tells the Governor to decide, not what to decide.
Three things that changed
Discretion moved. Commentators have noted that the November opinion gives the Governor more room to choose between the three options than the line from Shamsher Singh to Nabam Rebia suggested. Expect this to be argued again the next time a Governor and a state government fall out.
Article 142 has a boundary. The Court has used its 'complete justice' power widely, from the Bhopal settlement to Ayodhya. The opinion marks one thing it cannot do: perform the core function of another constitutional office.
The pressure shifts back to politics. Without a judicial clock, the remedy for delay depends on Parliament (which could amend Articles 200 and 201), on conventions, and on how Governors are chosen. These are the reforms Sarkaria and Punchhi proposed decades ago.
What is still open
An advisory opinion answers questions in the abstract. It is not an appeal, and it does not on its own undo a decided case. How the ten Tamil Nadu laws that took effect in April 2025 fare, and what counts as 'prolonged and unexplained' delay, will be settled in the cases that follow.
For an aspirant, that is the point. This is not a story with a winner to memorise. It is a working example of how the Constitution's silences get filled: by the text, by courts, by commissions and, eventually, by the people who hold office.
Turn the story into marks
Answer these before you leave. Each question tests something from the layers above.
With reference to Bills passed by a State Legislature, consider the following statements: 1. The Constitution prescribes a period of six months within which the Governor must decide on a Bill. 2. If a Bill returned by the Governor is passed again by the House, the Governor shall not withhold assent from it. 3. A Bill that would derogate from the powers of the High Court must be reserved for the President. Which of the statements given above are correct?
In its November 2025 advisory opinion on the Presidential Reference on assent to Bills, the Supreme Court held that:
Under which Article of the Constitution can the President seek the opinion of the Supreme Court on a question of law?
Prelims: facts to keep
- Article 200: Governor's options on a state Bill. Article 201: President's options on a Bill reserved by the Governor.
- A re-passed Bill: the Governor 'shall not withhold assent' (first proviso to Article 200).
- Reservation is mandatory for a Bill that would reduce the powers of the High Court (second proviso to Article 200).
- If the President returns a reserved Bill, the House must reconsider it within six months (Article 201).
- Article 143: President's power to seek the Supreme Court's advisory opinion. Article 142: 'complete justice'.
- Punchhi Commission (2010) recommended a time limit for Governors to decide on Bills; Sarkaria (1988) said reservation should be rare.
Mains · GS-II · 15 marks
The absence of timelines in Article 200 has turned the Governor's assent into a site of Centre-state conflict. In the light of recent Supreme Court pronouncements, examine whether the judiciary or Parliament is better placed to fill this gap.
- Open with the constitutional design: Articles 200 and 201, the Governor as a constitutional head (Article 163, Shamsher Singh).
- The problem: pendency data (PRS 2024), Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Punjab disputes.
- Judicial route: April 2025 timelines and deemed assent, and their strengths (immediate remedy) and weaknesses (separation of powers).
- November 2025 opinion: three options, no indefinite withholding, no timelines, limited judicial review of inaction.
- Parliamentary route: a constitutional amendment on timelines, Punchhi's recommendation, conventions on reservation (Sarkaria).
- Conclude: courts can enforce the duty to act; a durable fix needs an amendment and conventions, in the spirit of cooperative federalism.
Essay theme
"Constitutional silences are filled either by conventions or by conflict."
Keywords for your answers
What to watch
- How courts define 'prolonged, unexplained and indefinite' delay in the next Governor dispute.
- Whether any state, or Parliament, moves a constitutional amendment to put timelines into Articles 200 and 201.
- Whether the November 2025 opinion is relied on to revisit the ten Tamil Nadu laws given assent in April 2025.
- How the opinion's reading of the Governor's discretion is squared with Shamsher Singh in future cases.
Update log
- First published, covering the April 2025 judgment and the November 2025 advisory opinion.
Read the originals
Every numbered note in the story links here. Start with the primary documents. The analysis includes critics of the rulings, so read both sides before you write.