The Supreme Court of India delivered a significant ruling on April 8, 2025, concerning the powers of a Governor in relation to state legislature bills. The court determined that a Governor cannot reserve a bill for the President's consideration if the bill has already been rejected once and is re-presented after reconsideration by the state assembly.
The ruling stemmed from a case involving the Tamil Nadu Governor, R.N. Ravi, who had withheld assent to ten bills initially. When these bills were re-passed by the Tamil Nadu Assembly, the Governor chose to refer them to the President. The Supreme Court deemed this action to be not "bona fide".
The court's interpretation of Article 200 of the Constitution is crucial to its decision. The article outlines the Governor's power to withhold assent, but the court emphasized that if a bill is presented again following the process laid out in Article 200, the Governor must either grant assent immediately or within one month.
The Supreme Court's ruling clearly limits a Governor's ability to repeatedly delay or obstruct state legislative bills by restricting the ability to refer bills to the President after the state legislature has reconsidered them.