Raving no more

SC ruling on TN guv applies to guvs in all oppn-ruled states. It removes a constitutional ambiguity

Governors in opposition-run states can’t be a law unto themselves. SC made this abundantly clear with a strongly-worded judgment against Tamil Nadu governor RN Ravi on Tuesday. Ravi, though, has been here before. In March last year, SC had pulled him up for refusing to reinstate a minister on the CM’s recommendation. But this time, a bench of justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan has delivered a landmark verdict that not only clears 10 pending bills – one of them stuck since Jan 2020 – in one stroke, but also limits the power of governors across states to delay inconvenient bills indefinitely. The 10 bills Ravi had stymied, for example, would have loosened Centre’s grip on institutes of higher education in TN, including the power to appoint vice-chancellors.

Governors vs states is an old story, and recommending president’s rule used to be the top trick in a governor’s playbook. Now, sitting on bills, refusing to convene assembly sessions, and rejecting VC appointments are more common across opposition-run states – Kerala, Telangana, West Bengal and Punjab, besides TN. In Nov 2023, for instance, SC had agreed with Punjab’s complaint against governor Banwarilal Purohit, who had withheld approval for four bills. That should have been Ravi’s cue to clear the TN bills he had jammed, but he lobbed them into the President’s court instead. On Tuesday, SC ruled that his action was “erroneous and illegal”.

Without “undermining” the governor’s office, the court upheld the supremacy of the elected legislature: “The members of the state legislature have been elected by the people of the state as a result of the democratic outcome (and) are better attuned to ensure the well-being of the people.” It said a governor – and this applies not just to Ravi – does not have a “pocket veto” and must be “guided not by considerations of political expediency but by the sanctity of the Constitutional oath he undertook”.

What makes this judgment different from others on the subject is that SC has removed an ambiguity arising from the wording of Article 200 of the Constitution. Where the Article says governors must send bills for reconsideration “as soon as possible”, SC has said governors will have a maximum of three months to return a bill for the state govt’s reconsideration, or send it to the President. That’s a long-overdue blow for federalism.