Tamil Nadu governor appears to have set own procedure: SC

New Delhi: The Supreme Court Thursday orally observed that the Tamil Nadu governor "seems to have adopted his own procedure" in withholding his assent to several Bills passed by the state legislature.

A division bench comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan also observed that the governor chose to withhold his assent barely three days after the top court in November 2023 made it "abundantly clear" in another case that governors must decide on state Bills without delay. The November 2023 case pertained to a standoff between the state legislature and governor in Punjab.

Speaking for the bench, Justice Pardiwala told attorney general R Venkataramani, who represented governor RN Ravi, that the petitioners have "not only alleged malice in law but also malice in fact. You need to dispel these notions".


The Tamil Nadu government has petitioned the top court against the actions and "inaction" of the governor in not granting assent to nearly a dozen Bills passed by the assembly.

The judge added that the bench needed to be shown facts to ascertain "what weighed" with the governor that he decided to withhold assent to the Bills.

"You have to tell us what was so gross in the Bills that he did so," the bench told the attorney general. It also pondered on whether the governor's act amounted to "pocket veto".

The bench asked the attorney general to demonstrate by way of "contemporaneous record to connect what was discussed and what are the loopholes in the Bills" which led to the governor withholding his assent.

The court observed that by indefinitely withholding assent to Bills, the Tamil Nadu governor appeared to have rendered a proviso to Article 200 of the Constitution redundant.

Senior lawyers Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Mukul Rohatgi and Rakesh Dwivedi argued that the governor had acted in a "whimsical manner" by indefinitely withholding the assent to the bills.

The bench prima facie found force in the petitioners' argument that the role of the governor "is that of an advisor".