In trying to put an end to the unconstitutional shenanigans of Tamil Nadu Governor R N Ravi and his ilk, the Supreme Court of India in State of Tamil Nadu vs Governor of Tamil Nadu may have unwittingly created new and problematic constitutional issues.
The Court’s judgment on April 8 is unprecedented in at least three ways. First, it has laid down detailed guidelines for how a governor ought to act in refusing assent to a bill or referring it to the president, and given itself the power to issue a mandamus to the governor for failing to act.
Story continues below this ad
Second, it has exercised its powers under Article 142 to hold that the bills the TN governor did not assent to have become law. Third, it has given itself the power to issue a mandamus to the president when a bill has been referred to the president by the governor.
Of these three unprecedented acts, the first two are welcome — they are the Court’s latest attempt to check the unconstitutional behaviour of a governor who behaved more like a colonial viceroy than a constitutional authority.
The circumstances in which the Tamil Nadu government was forced to bring this case were extraordinary. The governor simply refused to give assent to 12 bills lawfully passed by the state legislature. When pushed by the court in an earlier round of litigation, he referred two of the bills to the president for her assent and simply returned 10 to the state legislative assembly without giving assent. When the 10 bills were passed again in the Assembly, he referred all of them to the president for her assent raising various grounds of constitutionality.
