The excerpt taken from the judgment of State of Tamilnadu v. Governor of Tamilnadu (2025).
The Governor, in exercise of his powers under Article 200, has three options to choose from. The use of the conjunction “or” between the three options signifies that the options are mutually exclusive and once one of the options is exercised by the Governor, the other options become unavailable to choose from. Kameshwar Singh[1] held that there can be no reservation for the consideration of the President once assent is declared and similarly, there is no requirement for the Governor to assent to the bill, once the bill, having been reserved for the consideration of the President, has received his assent.
The option of withholding of assent is attached with the first proviso and once the Governor declares the withholding of assent, the entire mechanism which is laid down in the first proviso itself has to follow suit. Thus, the first proviso to Article 200 is a complete code in itself as regards the procedure which is to be followed once the Governor withholds assent and the rest of the article has no applicability thereafter.
It is also interesting to note that the expression “withhold assent” has been employed in the substantive part of Article 200. The literal meaning of the expression ‘withhold’ as defined in a number of dictionaries is to keep back; to keep in one’s possession what belongs to or is due to others; to hinder; to prevent; to defer; to postpone; to detain; to keep under control; to retain; to keep from doing something; to refrain from doing something.
Thus, it would not be incorrect to construe that the option of withholding of assent has been provided to the Governor under the substantive part only with a view to defer or to postpone the grant of assent to a bill. Withholding of assent cannot be construed to be the same as denying of assent or as conferring a power in the Governor to veto a legislation passed by the State legislature, which would be against the very fundamentals of a representative democracy.
Further, the scope of this deferment of assent by the Governor has been made subject to the procedure laid down in the first proviso. The procedure laid down in the first proviso ensures that the withholding of assent does not become analogous to a pocket veto. The use of the expression “if the Bill is passed again by the House or Houses with or without amendment” in the first proviso clearly indicates that the role of the Governor under the first proviso has been characterized as recommendatory in nature and that his suggestions do not bind the legislature.
Further, the expression “the Governor shall not withhold assent therefrom” in the first proviso leaves no scope for the Governor to take any course of action other than discontinuing the withholding of assent, which by necessary implication means to accord assent to the bill. The expression also indicates that there is strict constitutional prohibition against the Governor to not withhold assent to the bill.
What follows from the aforesaid discussion is that once the option of withholding of assent is exercised by the Governor, the mechanism under the first proviso is set into motion to the exclusion of everything else envisaged under the article. This is in view of the maxim Expressio Unius Est Exclusio Alterius i.e., the expression of one thing is the exclusion of another. Once the mechanism under the first proviso is set into motion and the various stages are complied with, the only possible manner in which the mechanism prescribed under the first proviso can conclude is by the Governor granting assent to the bill.
Thus, there is no scope for the Governor to reserve a bill for the consideration of the President once it is presented to him for reconsideration after compliance with the procedure laid down in the first proviso.
However, for the sake of completeness, we deem it necessary to discuss a possible scenario wherein the Governor may have the power to reserve the bill for the consideration of the President even after it is repassed by the State legislature and presented to him for assent. Say, for instance, in a particular case, the Governor withholds assent to a bill which is presented to him and returns it to the House or the Houses together with a message requesting them to reconsider certain aspects of the bill or introduce certain amendments desirable thereto. However, the House or the Houses, in the process of reconsideration, introduce certain changes which were not suggested by the Governor in the message which he sent together with the bill.
In such a scenario, the House or Houses cannot be said to have “reconsidered the Bill accordingly” which is a mandatory condition prescribed under the first proviso. If the bill which is presented to the Governor for assent in the second round could be said to have been reconsidered by the House or Houses on wholly different and new grounds, and if those changes are of such a nature where a reservation for the consideration of the President may be desirable, then the Governor would not be precluded from reserving the bill for the consideration of the President.
However, if the bill is repassed by the House or Houses without amendments, or only with such amendments as were suggested by the Governor in his message, then the procedure prescribed under the first proviso could be said to be fully complied with and the Governor would be bound to signify his assent thereto and would be precluded from reserving the bill for the consideration of the President.
We say so because the procedure laid down in the first proviso cannot be construed as giving the State legislature the unfettered power to introduce changes to the bill which alter its very nature, or which, for instance, fall foul of the second proviso to Article 200. In such a scenario, the Governor would have all the three options which are available to him when a bill is presented to him in the first instance. However, whenever the House or Houses reconsider the bill “accordingly”, that is, in accordance with the suggestions of the Governor and pass it with or without amendments, the Governor is bound to act as per the clear constitutional directive laid down in the first proviso.
As we shall also discuss later, any reservation of a bill by the Governor for the consideration of the President on the ground that the bill was not reconsidered as per the procedure prescribed in the first proviso would be subject to judicial scrutiny. 208. Coming to the facts of the present case, out of twelve bills which are the subject matter of the present petition, two were reserved by the Governor for the consideration of the President in the first instance of their presentation.
As regards the remaining ten bills, the Governor declared a withholding of assent, however, the bills were returned without any message as is envisaged under the first proviso. What stands out as a glaring omission on the part of the Governor is that the day on which the withholding of assent was declared, the decision in State of Punjab (supra) had already been passed and even the notice in the present petition had been issued. Thus, it was expected of the Governor that he would not declare a simpliciter withholding of assent of the bills without specifying the reasons for such withholding and also without making recommendations as regards the desirability of introducing any amendments by the State legislature while reconsidering the bills.
In light of the language of Article 200, and also keeping in mind its interpretation by this Court in State of Punjab (supra), there was no room for the Governor to declare a simpliciter withholding of assent without taking recourse to the first proviso as that virtually amounts to the exercise of absolute veto by the Governor, a power which is conspicuously absent from our constitutional scheme.
In the absence of any message under the first proviso by the Governor, the State legislature was left with no other option but to proceed on the assumption that the bills were required to be reconsidered in its entirety. The State legislature proceeded on this assumption and the said 10 Bills were reconsidered in a special sitting and were passed without any material changes and presented to the Governor on the same day. Thereafter, the Governor, rather than giving his assent to the Bills, went on to reserve the Bills for the consideration of the President on the ground that the Bills were repugnant to Entry 66 of the List I of the Schedule VII to the Constitution.
For the reasons that we have assigned in our foregoing discussion, we are of the view that the Governor could not have reserved the Bills for the consideration of the President once they were reconsidered by the State legislature and presented to him without any amendments, particularly when the Governor sent back the Bills to the State legislature without any message on an earlier occasion. As a natural consequence of the reservation of the bills for the consideration of the President having been found to be in contravention of the procedure prescribed under Article 200 of the Constitution and thus, illegal and void, any subsequent decision taken by the President on those Bills would also be non-est and is thus declared to be void ab-initio.
Reference
State of Tamilnadu v. Governor of Tamilnadu (2025)
[1] State of Bihar v. Kameshwar Singh reported in (1952) 1 SCC 528