Special Reference No. 1 of 2025 | 2025 INSC 1333
Supreme Court of India | Decided: 20 November 2025
Background of the Case
This case has its roots in a very real, very bitter political standoff one that many of us followed in the news. The Tamil Nadu government had passed several Bills through the State Legislature, but Governor R.N. Ravi simply sat on them. He didn’t grant assent, didn’t return them with comments, and didn’t send them to the President. He just didn’t act.
This kind of silent blocking is informally called a “pocket veto,” and it is something the Constitution of India never intended to allow.
How it came to Court
● The Tamil Nadu government challenged the Governor’s prolonged inaction before the Supreme Court.
● On 8 April 2025, a Constitution Bench ruled in State of Tamil Nadu v. Governor of Tamil Nadu, (2025) SCC Online SC 1 that this inaction was unconstitutional and illegal.
● The Court prescribed timelines for the Governor to act and even used its Article 142 of the Constitution of India, 1950 powers to grant deemed assent to the stalled Bills.
● Shortly after, President Draupadi Murmu referred 14 constitutional questions to the Supreme Court under Article 143(1), seeking clarity on the limits of gubernatorial powers.
● This gave rise to Special Reference No. 1 of 2025 — only the 16th Presidential Reference in India’s constitutional history.
The Reference was heard by a five-judge Constitution Bench: CJI B.R. Gavai, along with Justices Surya Kant, Vikram Nath, P.S. Narasimha, and Atul S. Chandrukar. Arguments ran for ten days before judgment was reserved on 11 September 2025.
Issues Involved
The Presidential Reference raised some genuinely hard constitutional questions that had never been settled so directly before:
● Issue 1: Does a Governor have a “fourth option” under Article 200 that is, can he indefinitely hold on to a Bill without taking any action?
● Issue 2: Can the Supreme Court judicially impose timelines on the Governor or the President for acting on Bills?
● Issue 3: Can “deemed assent” be read into Articles 200 and 201 i.e., if no action is taken within a set period, is assent automatically granted?
● Issue 4: Are the decisions of the Governor and the President under Articles 200 and 201 open to judicial review?
● Issue 5: Is the Governor bound by the advice of the Council of Ministers when deciding on assent?
- Rules / Legal Provisions Applied
The Court examined several provisions of the Constitution of India, 1950:
● Article 143 – Presidential Reference Power: Allows the President to refer questions of law or public importance to the Supreme Court for its advisory opinion. This is the provision under which the entire Reference was made.
● Article 200 – Governor’s Assent: The core provision at the heart of this case. It sets out what a Governor must do when a Bill passed by the State Legislature is presented for assent grant assent, withhold and return it, or reserve it for the President.
● Article 201 – President’s Assent: Deals with what happens after the Governor reserves a Bill for the President – the President may grant or withhold assent.
● Article 142 – Complete Justice: Gives the Supreme Court power to pass any order necessary to do complete justice. This was used in the earlier Tamil Nadu judgment to grant deemed assent to stalled Bills.
● Article 163 – Council of Ministers: Governs the relationship between the Governor and the Council of Ministers, and to what extent the Governor must follow their advice. - Reasoning of the Court
The Constitution Bench delivered its advisory opinion on 20 November 2025. The reasoning was careful, detailed, and in some ways a course correction from the April 2025 Tamil Nadu judgment.
On the Governor’s Options:
The Court firmly rejected the idea that a Governor can simply do nothing. Under Article 200, the Governor has exactly three options:
● Grant assent to the Bill.
● Withhold assent and return it to the Legislature with a message for reconsideration.
● Reserve the Bill for the President’s consideration.The Union Government argued that the first proviso to Article 200 adds a fourth option – one that allows the Governor to sit on a Bill indefinitely. The Court flatly disagreed. The proviso limits, not expands, the Governor’s choices. And for Money Bills, even the option of returning the Bill doesn’t exist.
On Timelines and Deemed Assent:
Here, the Court took a step back from the April 2025 judgment. It said:
● No court can judicially impose timelines on the Governor or the President, because Articles 200 and 201 are silent on timelines.
● The concept of “deemed assent” automatically treating a Bill as passed after a period of inaction cannot be read into the Constitution.
● To that extent, the portions of the Tamil Nadu judgment (State of Tamil Nadu v. Governor of Tamil Nadu, (2025) SCC Online SC 1) that had prescribed timelines and granted deemed assent were overruled, as they exceeded what the Court is empowered to do.On Judicial Review (Justiciability):
The Court held that the Governor’s and President’s decisions on Bills are not open to judicial review before the Bill becomes law. Courts can step in, but only after the legislative process has concluded not midway through it. - On the Governor’s Independence from the Cabinet:
On the question of ministerial advice, the Court struck a careful balance. The Governor is not merely a rubber stamp, he has limited but real discretionary powers when it comes to deciding on Bills. He is not entirely bound by the Council of Ministers’ advice for this specific purpose.
- Conclusion / Judgment
The Supreme Court answered the Presidential Reference through 2025 INSC 1333. To summarise what the Court held:
● The Governor has only three options under Article 200, there is no fourth option of indefinite
inaction.
● Courts cannot impose timelines on the Governor or President for acting on Bills.
● Deemed assent cannot be read into Articles 200 or 201.
● Actions of the Governor and President on Bills are not justiciable before the Bill becomes law.
● The Governor has limited discretionary authority on assent and is not fully bound by Cabinet advice in this regard.In short, the judgment drew a clear constitutional line: a Governor cannot play silent, but the Court cannot play timekeeper either.
- Author’s Analysis
What makes this case so interesting is that it forces us to confront a tension that the Constitution’s framers perhaps did not anticipate, at least not so sharply: what happens when a Governor, a constitutional office, is used as a political tool?
The advisory opinion gets a lot right. Limiting the Governor to three options is constitutionally sound and important. It stops the pocket veto from becoming an accepted and increasingly weaponised practice in Indian federalism.
But the judgment also raises a legitimate concern: if courts cannot impose timelines, and if gubernatorial decisions aren’t justiciable before a Bill becomes law, what exactly is the remedy for a state that’s being stonewalled? The Court acknowledged the problem but offered no clear solution. The question of enforcement remains open.
- That said, this is still a landmark opinion, the first time the Supreme Court has so comprehensively laid out the constitutional grammar of Articles 200 and 201 (2025 INSC 1333). It will serve as the definitive reference point for any future Centre-state disputes involving gubernatorial assent.
For students of constitutional law, this case is a masterclass in how the Court navigates the space between judicial restraint and constitutional enforcement.
THIS ARTICLE IS WRITTEN BY SHRUTIKSHA SHAH FROM COLLEGE OF COMMERCE,ARTS & SCIENCE,PATNA