Tamil Nadu governor’s withholding of assent to bills was illegal, rules Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Tuesday held that Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi’s decision to withhold assent to 10 bills, some of which were pending since January 2020, and refer them to the president after they were re-enacted by the Assembly was “illegal and erroneous”, reported Live Law.

A bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan ruled that the governor’s actions violated Article 200 of the Constitution, which lays down the procedure for state legislation. The court declared that the 10 bills would be deemed to have received the governor’s assent from the date they were passed a second time by the legislature.

It also set aside any action taken by the president on the basis of the governor’s reference of the bills.

The judges held that the governor was “not acting with bona fides” and had “shown scant respect” to the Supreme Court’s earlier ruling in a case concerning the delaying of bills by the Punjab governor.

“We are not undermining the office of the governor,” the court said. “All we say is that the governor must act with due deference to the settled conventions of the parliamentary democracy, respecting the will of the people expressed through the legislature as well as the elected government responsible to the people.”

Chief Minister MK Stalin described the...

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