Author : Divyanshi Hazari Yadav, Indore Institute of Law
To the Point
A Bill passed by a State Legislature does not become law until it receives assent. Article 200 places that final step with the Governor and, where a Bill is reserved, Article 201 places it with the President. The text lists the options available but fixes no outer time limit for the Governor and none at all for the President. Several State governments, notably Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Kerala, have alleged that this silence is used to bury Bills.
In April 2025 a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court answered by prescribing timelines and, using Article 142, treating ten Tamil Nadu Bills as assented to. The President then invoked Article 143(1) and put fourteen questions to the Court. On 20 November 2025 a five-judge Constitution Bench held that courts cannot lay down rigid timelines or recognise deemed assent, yet also made clear that a Governor cannot sit on a Bill indefinitely and that limited judicial review survives. This article argues that the outcome protects the separation of powers but guards the federal promise of Article 200 only partly.
Use of Legal Jargon
Assent is the formal sanction that converts a Bill into an Act. Under Article 200 the Governor may grant assent, reserve the Bill for the President, or withhold assent. Where assent is withheld, the first proviso contemplates return of a non-Money Bill ‘as soon as possible’ with a message for reconsideration; once the House re-passes it, the Governor cannot withhold assent again. A pocket veto is indefinite inaction that defeats a Bill without any formal decision, a power the Constitution nowhere confers. Deemed assent is a judicial fiction under which a Bill is treated as approved once a deadline lapses; the April 2025 bench created it through Article 142, the power to do complete justice.
The aid and advice rule under Article 163 means the Governor ordinarily acts on the Council of Ministers’ advice, subject to constitutional discretion. Justiciability asks whether a matter is fit for judicial decision. A writ of mandamus compels performance of a public duty; here it would command the Governor to decide, not dictate how to decide. Advisory jurisdiction under Article 143 lets the President seek the Court’s opinion, which is not a decree binding the parties but carries great persuasive weight. The ratio decidendi is the binding legal reasoning of a judgment, while obiter dicta are incidental remarks. Stare decisis is the rule of following settled precedent, and federalism, a basic feature of the Constitution, is the division of power between the Union and the States.
The Proof
Textual proof. Article 200 speaks of a Bill being presented to the Governor and the courses open thereafter. Its only expression of urgency is the phrase ‘as soon as possible’ in the first proviso, and that attaches to returning a Bill, not to the decision as a whole. Article 201 gives the President a parallel choice and allows a reserved Bill to be sent back to the House, which then has six months to reconsider; that period binds the legislature, not the President. Neither article says what follows if the authority simply does nothing. Article 361 shields the President and Governors from answerability to any court for the exercise of their powers, which those defending unreviewable discretion rely on.
Factual proof. The Tamil Nadu dispute supplies the record. The Assembly passed ten Bills and, after long delay, the Governor declared assent withheld. The Assembly re-passed them in a special sitting, whereupon the Governor reserved them for the President instead of assenting. On 8 April 2025 the Supreme Court held this course illegal, fixed timelines (broadly one month for assent on re-passed Bills, three months for the Governor’s other decisions, and three months for the President), and treated the ten Bills as assented to. On 15 May 2025 the President made a reference of fourteen questions under Article 143(1). The Court issued notice to the Union and all States, reserved its opinion in September 2025, and delivered it on 20 November 2025 through a five-judge bench headed by the then Chief Justice, B.R. Gavai.
Institutional proof. The problem is structural, not episodic. The Punchhi Commission (2010) recommended that Governors decide on Bills within six months, an acknowledgement that the text leaves a gap. Friction between Raj Bhavans and Opposition-ruled States over pending Bills has recurred across several States, which is why the Reference arrived amid wide public attention. A gap that produces repeated litigation is evidence that the constitutional scheme needs either judicial gap-filling or legislative repair; the 2025 cases are the two answers on offer.
Abstract
This article examines the position of Governors and the President when State Bills are presented for assent under Articles 200 and 201. It traces the line from Shamsher Singh and Nabam Rebia through the Punjab ruling of 2023 and the Tamil Nadu judgment of April 2025 to the Presidential Reference opinion of 20 November 2025. It identifies the central tension between two goods: preventing unelected constitutional heads from frustrating the legislative will, and preventing courts from rewriting the Constitution by inserting deadlines and a doctrine of deemed assent. It concludes that the Constitution Bench chose textual fidelity over judicial innovation, preserved a narrow window of review against indefinite inaction, and left the real cure, fixed timelines, to constitutional or statutory amendment.
Case Laws
1. Shamsher Singh v. State of Punjab (1974). A seven-judge bench held that the President and Governors are constitutional heads who exercise executive power on the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers, except where the Constitution expressly requires personal discretion. This is the foundation of the parliamentary model and the starting point for every argument that a Governor cannot override an elected government on legislation.
2. Nabam Rebia and Bamang Felix v. Deputy Speaker (2016). A Constitution Bench held that the discretion of a Governor under Article 163 is narrow and cannot be used as a free-floating power to act against ministerial advice, for example in summoning or controlling the House. The case matters because it confines discretion to what the text supports and makes gubernatorial action reviewable.
3. S.R. Bommai v. Union of India (1994). The Court treated federalism as part of the basic structure and subjected the exercise of Union power over States to judicial scrutiny. It supplies the constitutional vocabulary for the States’ claim that prolonged inaction on Bills erodes their legislative autonomy.
4. State of Punjab v. Principal Secretary to the Governor of Punjab (2023). Decided on 10 November 2023 by a bench headed by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, this case arose when the Punjab Governor withheld action on Bills and questioned the validity of Assembly sittings. The Court held that a Governor, as an unelected titular head, cannot defeat the legislative process, that withholding assent must be followed by return of the Bill with a message, and that the words ‘as soon as possible’ import promptness. It rejected the idea that withholding assent could end a Bill’s life without reconsideration.
5. State of Tamil Nadu v. Governor of Tamil Nadu (2025). Decided on 8 April 2025 by Justices J.B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan, this is the high-water mark of judicial enforcement. The bench held that the Governor has no absolute or pocket veto, that reserving re-passed Bills for the President was illegal, and that gubernatorial inaction is justiciable. Invoking Article 142, it deemed the ten Bills assented to and prescribed timelines for the Governor and the President. The judgment was praised as a defence of federalism and criticised as judicial legislation.
6. In Re: Assent, Withholding or Reservation of Bills by the Governor and the President of India (Presidential Reference, 2025). On 20 November 2025 the Constitution Bench held that neither the Governor under Article 200 nor the President under Article 201 can be bound by court-prescribed timelines, and that deemed assent is alien to the constitutional text and cannot be created through Article 142. It added that the President need not seek the Court’s advice under Article 143 each time a Bill is reserved, since the President’s own satisfaction under Article 201 suffices. At the same time the Court did not endorse a pocket veto: if a Governor fails to act within a reasonable time, a constitutional court may exercise limited review, confined to the process and not the merits of the decision. The opinion is advisory, so its formal relationship with the April 2025 judgment remains debated, though in substance it rejects that judgment’s timelines and deemed-assent device.
Conclusion
The Presidential Reference restores textual discipline. Articles 200 and 201 contain no clock, and a court that supplies one risks exercising a legislative function; the doctrine of deemed assent in particular replaces a constitutional decision-maker with a judicial fiction. Equally, the Court has refused to treat the silence of the text as a licence for indefinite delay. By recognising a limited mandamus against unreasonable inaction, it keeps open a remedy for States without dictating the outcome of any Bill.
The remedy remains thin. ‘Reasonable time’ is elastic, review is confined to process, and a State must litigate each delay after the harm to its legislative agenda has already occurred. The better cure lies with the political branches. Parliament could amend Articles 200 and 201 to fix outer limits in line with the Punchhi Commission’s six-month suggestion, require reasoned written communication for every reservation or return, and clarify the treatment of re-passed Bills. Until then, Governors and the President hold a duty that is morally compelling but only weakly enforceable, and the doctrinal tension between the 2025 judgment and the 2025 opinion may need a fuller adjudication by a larger bench in an actual dispute.
FAQs
1. Is a Governor bound to assent to every Bill? No. In the first round the Governor may assent, reserve the Bill for the President, or withhold assent and return it with a message. After the House re-passes a Bill, the first proviso bars withholding assent, although how far reservation stays open at that stage was read differently in commentary on the 2025 opinion.
2. Can a Governor hold a Bill indefinitely? No. The Constitution Bench rejected fixed deadlines but held that unexplained, prolonged inaction can be reviewed in a limited way, and a court may direct the Governor to decide within a reasonable time without commenting on the merits.
3. What is deemed assent and is it valid today? It is the treatment of a Bill as approved because the authority failed to act within a deadline. The April 2025 bench created it using Article 142, but the Presidential Reference opinion held that it cannot substitute for the actual decision of the Governor or the President.
4. Can courts review a decision of the President under Article 201? Only narrowly. The opinion limits review to the process, not the merits of whether to assent, and holds that the President’s own satisfaction is enough without a mandatory Article 143 reference.
5. Did the Presidential Reference overrule the Tamil Nadu judgment? An advisory opinion does not formally set aside a judgment between parties. Substantively, however, it rejects the timelines and deemed assent that the judgment introduced, which is why the relationship between the two remains a live academic and doctrinal question.
6. What can a State do when its Bill is stuck? It can seek a limited mandamus from the High Court under Article 226 or the Supreme Court under Article 32 after prolonged inaction, rely on the Punjab principle that a Governor cannot defeat the legislative process, and press for a constitutional or statutory timeline through political channels such as the Inter-State Council.
