The Kerala government last week approached the Supreme Court saying President Droupadi Murmu had withheld assent to four Bills passed by the state.
Role of Governor
Article 200 of the Constitution states that after a Bill has been passed by the state legislature, “it shall be presented to the Governor”. The Governor, then, has three options: give assent to the Bill, withhold assent, or reserve the Bill for consideration by the President.
For situations where assent is withheld, Article 200 states that “the Governor may, as soon as possible after the presentation to him…return the Bill…together with a message requesting that the House or Houses will reconsider the Bill or any specified provisions thereof…and if the Bill is passed again by the House or Houses with or without amendment and presented to the Governor for assent, the Governor shall not withhold assent therefrom.”
The latter part of the proviso clearly gives the state government the final say on enacting legislation. But it is the part saying “as soon as possible after the presentation to him”, which has led to states approaching the SC.
Since the article does not provide a timeline, Governors have often withheld assent to Bills for extended periods, effectively leaving them, and the state legislature, in limbo.
Role of President
In situations where a Bill is sent to the President for consideration, the President can either give or withhold assent. This is dealt with in Article 201.
If assent is withheld, the President requests the Governor to return the Bill to the state legislature for reconsideration.
The state government then has six months to reconsider the Bill — failing to do so results in its lapsing.
If the Bill is passed once again by the state legislature, it must be sent back to the President who, unlike the Governor, is under no obligation to give assent when assessing the reconsidered Bill.
This is the only situation in which state governments do not have the final say in their own lawmaking process.
Supreme Court ruling
In November 2023, the SC was to decide if a Governor could withhold assent to Bills passed by the state legislature if he believed that the session where the Bills were passed were convened illegally.
The Governor of Punjab, Banwarilal Purohit, had refused to give assent to four Bills passed by the Punjab Assembly, claiming that he had received legal advice that led him to believe that the Bills were passed in breach of law and procedure.
However, the Bills were not remitted to the Assembly for reconsideration.
The court held that the Governor did not have the power to “thwart the normal course of lawmaking by the State Legislatures”, and held that the phrase “as soon as possible” in Article 200 means that “the Governor cannot be at liberty to keep the Bill pending indefinitely without any action whatsoever.”
If the Governor decides to withhold assent, he is bound to follow the procedure provided in the first proviso of Article 200, and return it to the state legislature for reconsideration, the court said
The court spelled out the obligations of the Governor in the lawmaking process, it stopped short of providing a definitive timeline for the Governor to make the decision.
