The Supreme Court on Tuesday held that the Tamil Nadu Governor Dr RN Ravi's act of withholding assent for 10 Bills, the oldest of them pending since 2020, and reserving it to the President after the State Legislature reenacted it, is "illegal and erroneous" in law. 

The top court said that the Bills would be considered to have received the governor's assent when they were presented in the second round after they were passed again by the Assembly. 

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A bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan said that the Governor did not act in good faith when he sent the re-enacted Bills to the President for approval, especially after the apex court had already ruled in a similar case involving the Punjab Governor.

The bench on February 10 reserved judgment on the writ petitions filed by the Tamil Nadu Government against its Governor withholding assent for 12 Bills. Once the Bills were re-enacted in a special session by the Government, the Governor sent some of the re-passed laws to the President for reconsideration.

The petitioners have argued that the governor's actions of sitting over the Bills for 3 years and then, one fine day, declaring that he is withholding assent and, when the Bills are passed again, reserving them to the President are violative of Article 200. Therefore, the Governor's declaration is held to be void.

As per the petitioners' arguments, the Governor has three options under Article 200 when the bill is sent to him: assent, reserve for reconsideration of the President or withhold the assent. The state argued that if the Governor reserves it for the President's reconsideration, he has to do so at the first instance. However, if he does not exercise that, the next recourse is to send the bill to the State legislature. Here, it was argued that, as per the Punjab Governor's decision(which was pronounced at a time when the Tamil Nadu Governor decided to send the re-enacted Bills to the President), if the Governor was withholding the assent, then he should return the Bills to the assembly.

Whereas, the Respondent submitted that what troubled the Governor was repugnancy with the central laws and nothing else and therefore, in the national interest, he sent it to the President. During the proceedings, the top court had orally remarked that the Governor had adopted his own procedure on withholding assent.

The top court also questioned the submission of Attorney General R Venkataramani that the Governor found the Bills repugnant. The court asked if the Governor had found the Bills repugnant, why did he continue to withhold it without informing the Legislative Assembly.

The Kerala government had moved the Supreme Court against former Governor Arif Mohammed Khan, alleging that he delayed taking a decision on bills passed by the State Assembly, thereby denying the people their rights. In 2023, the state government filed a writ petition against Khan, stating that the Governor had not acted on eight bills passed by the Assembly and that this inaction was unconstitutional.
(With LiveLaw inputs)

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