On Monday, the Supreme Court asked why Tamil Nadu’s governor, RN Ravi, has been taking a long time to approve bills that the state assembly passed. The judges questioned why he sent some of these bills to the President instead of giving them his approval.
The court, including Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan, wanted to know why the governor didn’t communicate with the state government for years and then suddenly decided to hold back his approval. They specifically asked, “Why did he send the bills back to the President?”
The governor’s lawyer, Attorney General R Venkataramani, argued that the Constitution doesn’t clearly stop the governor from sending the bills to the President after they have been passed again. The Tamil Nadu government took the issue to the Supreme Court in 2023 after the governor delayed his approval for 12 bills, dating back to 2020.
On November 13, 2023, the governor refused to approve 10 bills. In response, the state assembly called a special meeting on November 18 to pass the same bills again. On November 28, the governor chose to send some bills to the President for review.
The Supreme Court is trying to solve this problem and has raised questions about Article 200 of the Constitution, which talks about the governor’s power to approve, refuse, or send bills to the President. They are also looking at Article 201, which explains what the President can do when bills are sent to him, and Article 111, which details the President’s power over bills passed by Parliament.
Rakesh Dwivedi, a senior lawyer for the Tamil Nadu government, argued that interpreting Article 200 in any other way would step back to the “imperial era.” He urged the court to look at the Constitution as it is and understand that the state should operate with its own powers, highlighting that parliamentary democracy is a core principle of the Constitution.
Dwivedi pointed out that on November 13, 2023, the governor returned the bills with a short note explaining he was withholding his approval, but he did not provide any clear reasons.
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