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The State Of Tamil Nadu vs The Governor of Tamilnadu and Anr. judgment has brought greater clarity to the constitutional provision dealing with the giving of assent to a Bill by a Governor

The judgment of the Supreme Court of India, on April 8, 2025, namely, The State Of Tamil Nadu vs The Governor of Tamilnadu and Anr., can be called a landmark one as it has brought greater clarity to the constitutional provision dealing with the giving of assent to a Bill by a Governor. In this case, the background to the case is about the Governor of Tamil Nadu, R.N. Ravi, who had kept with him 10 Bills without taking any decision on them for many years. Finally, when the Assembly passed the Bills again and sent them to him, the Governor, instead of giving his assent, as per the mandate of Article 200 of the Constitution, sent them to the President of India for consideration. He sent the Bills to the President only after the Government of Tamil Nadu approached the top court.

The Bench of the Court (Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice R. Mahadevan) has now held that the action of the Governor in sending the Bills to the President at that stage to be unconstitutional and has struck it down. The Court also struck down the action taken by the President on those Bills — she had withheld assent. Invoking its special power under Article 142, the Court declared that all those Bills rejected by the President shall be deemed to have been assented to.

It is perhaps the first time in the history of the Court that Bills passed by the legislature of a state and withheld by the President have been declared as assented to by the Court. It is an extraordinary remedy to an extraordinary situation created by an extraordinary action of a State Governor.

In fact, Tamil Nadu is not the only State where the Governor has sat on Bills passed by the legislature. It has happened in Kerala, Telangana and Punjab. Kerala has now approached the Court on the same issue, which is yet to be heard.

Article 200 lays down the course of action to be followed by the Governor when a Bill duly passed by the legislature is presented to him. The logical course the Governor should follow is to give assent to the Bill. But if he does not follow this and decides to withhold assent to the Bill, the said Article says that he may declare that he is withholding assent. It would thus appear that once the Governor withholds assent, the Bill will die a natural death. The wording of this Article would convey such a meaning. But this part of the Article was very cogently explained by the Court in State Of Punjab vs Principal Secretary to The Governor of Punjab and Another (2023). The Court made it unambiguously clear that a declaration by the Governor that he is withholding assent does not bring an end to the Bill. It held that withholding of the Bill should be followed by sending the Bill to the legislature for reconsideration as soon as possible.

When the Bill is thus sent to the legislature, it would reconsider it promptly and send it back to the Governor either in the form in which it was passed originally or with amendments suggested by the Governor. Either way, the Governor will have to give assent to the Bill. He cannot exercise any veto against it. The Court has explained this point in the following words: “if the governor decides to withhold assent under the substantive part of Article 200 the logical course of action is to pursue the course indicated in the first proviso of remitting the Bill to the state legislature for reconsideration … if the first proviso is not read in juxtaposition to the power to withhold assent conferred by the substantive part of Article 200 the governor as the unelected head of the state would be in a position to virtually veto the functioning of a duly elected legislature by simple declaring that assent is withheld without any further recourse”.

This judicial explanation has been carried forward by the Court in the Tamil Nadu case. The Court has reiterated this position, namely, withholding assent is not the end of the story so far as the Bill is concerned but the Governor is mandated to send the Bill back to the legislature for its reconsideration and the Governor shall give assent to the Bill which is sent to him after reconsideration.