(MENAFN- Live Mint) The Supreme Court will give its opinion tomorrow, 20 November, on the President's reference under Article 143 of the Indian Constitution.

The presidential reference pertains to the timeline for granting assent to Bills by Presidents as well as Governors under Articles 200/201 of the Constitution.

A bench headed by the Chief Justice of India B R Gavai, and comprising of justices Surya Kant, Vikram Nath, P S Narasimha and A S Chandurkar, after hearing arguments for 10 days, had reserved the verdict on 11 September.

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In May this year, President Droupadi Murmu, using her powers under Article 143(1) of the Constitution, had asked the apex court whether the judiciary could impose timelines on the exercise of discretion by the President while dealing with bills passed by the state assemblies.

This decision by the President came in the wake of the 8 April verdict by the Supreme Court in a case by the Tamil Nadu government against the state's governor.

Murmu had sent a five-page reference to the SC, in which she sought to know its opinion on the powers of the President and Governors under Articles 200 and 201.

The State of Tamil Nadu v. the Governor of Tamil Nadu & the Union of India (2025)

This landmark ruling by the Supreme Court of India came in the 2023 writ petition filed by the Tamil Nadu government on Governor R N Ravi withholding assent to 10 bills passed by the state assembly.

Between November 2020 and April 2020, the Tamil Nadu Assembly had passed 13 bills, and 10 among them were withheld by the Governor without any communication to the assembly.

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The apex court, after analysing Article 200 of the Constitution, came to the conclusion that a Governor has three options after a bill is sent to them: granting assent, which enacts the bill into a law; withholding assent and sending it back to the assembly for reconsideration; or reserving the bill for consideration by the President.

The Attorney General of India had argued that the Governor could also withhold assent and not mandate return of the bill for reconsideration. However, this argument was rejected by the Supreme Court.

The apex court said that the fact that Article 200 does not prescribe a timeline for the Governor to follow, it cannot be interpreted as a signal to allow an indefinite delay or misuse of power by the Governor.

With agency inputs

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