Governor and President’s Powers | Day 2: Supreme Court to hear arguments from 19 August
Presidential Reference on Powers of the Governor and PresidentJudges: B.R. Gavai J, Surya Kant J, Vikram Nath J, P.S. Narasimha J, A.S. Chandurkar J
In August, a five-judge Special Bench of the Supreme Court will hear arguments on the powers of Governors and the President while granting assent to bills. This will be the Supreme Court’s first advisory opinion under Article 143 since 2016. The President referred the questions, invoking the Court’s advisory jurisdiction on 14 May 2025. This was a month after the Supreme Court declared that the Tamil Nadu Governor R.N. Ravi’s withholding of state bills was illegal in State of Tamil Nadu v Governor of Tamil Nadu (2025).
In that case, Justices J.B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan had imposed timelines on Governors and the President to grant assent to state bills. Further, they held that the breach of these timelines would be subject to judicial review. Moreover, the Bench had exercised the Court’s inherent power under Article 142 to deem assent on 10 pending state bills.
Supreme Court: Preliminary objections to be taken up first
Senior Advocate K.K. Venugopal appeared for the Kerala government. He urged the Court to take up arguments on the maintainability of the Reference. In the previous hearing, the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu had informed that they would argue on whether the Court should entertain the reference at all. Importantly, the Court has discretion to refuse its advisory opinion, provided there are sufficient reasons to deny it.
Last week, Venugopal withdrew a separate petition against former Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan for delaying assent on state bills. He relied on the decisions in State of Tamil Nadu and State of Punjab v Principal Secretary of the Governor (2023) which held that the Governor does not have absolute veto on state bills.
CJI Gavai stated that the parties with objections will commence arguments followed by the Union government and other parties. The Bench directed the parties to submit written submissions in two weeks. Two nodal counsel were appointed on both sides.
The parties submitted that each side will argue for four days each, starting 19 August 2025.