Constitutional Accountability And Federal Balance In India: A Critical Comment On In Re: Assent, Withholding Or Reservation Of Bills By The Governor And The President Of India (2025 INSC 1333)
- IJLLR Journal
- Aug 4
- 2 min read
Somya Singh, Advocate, Delhi High Court
Citation: 2025 INSC 1333 | Special Reference No 1 of 2025
Court: Constitution Bench, Supreme Court of India
Bench: CJI B.R. Gavai, JJ Surya Kant, Vikram Nath, P.S. Narasimha, A.S. Chandurkar
Decided: 20 November 2025
I. INTRODUCTION
When President Droupadi Murmu invoked Article 143 of the Constitution in May 2025 to seek the Supreme Court's advisory opinion on the powers of Governors and the President in relation to State Bills, she did so against a backdrop of prolonged institutional friction. Several Opposition governed States had spent years watching their legislative output languish in Raj Bhavans, with Governors offering no assent, no return, and no explanation. The Tamil Nadu Governor's withholding of assent to ten Bills eventually compelling the State government to repass them and triggering litigation that culminated in State of Tamil Nadu v Governor of Tamil Nadu became the most visible symbol of a wider constitutional malfunction. The Supreme Court's April 2025 judgment in that case had attempted a structural remedy: imposing timelines on gubernatorial action, invoking Article 142 to deem assent to pending Bills, and declaring all such gubernatorial and presidential functions justiciable.
Six months later, a five-judge Constitution Bench delivered the advisory opinion that is the subject of this comment. The opinion is significant on multiple counts. Formally, it is the sixteenth Presidential Reference since the Court's establishment. Substantively, it addresses some of the most contested questions in Indian constitutional law: the scope of the Governor's discretion under Article 200, the President's authority under Article 201, the permissibility of judicially imposed timelines, and the justiciability of assent. The answers the Court provides are, in several respects, as troubling as the institutional dysfunction they were meant to resolve.
