Supreme Court Says Courts Cannot Fix Timelines For President Or Governors On Bill Assent

In a significant ruling on Thursday, the Supreme Court held that constitutional courts cannot impose timelines on the President or Governors for granting assent to Bills under Articles 200 and 201, declaring that any notion of “deemed assent” would violate the separation of powers, even as it stressed that Governors cannot indefinitely delay decisions and may be directed through limited judicial review to act within a reasonable time if legislative processes are being frustrated. 

The Supreme Court has made it clear that while Presidents and Governors have constitutional powers to decide on Bills, they can’t sit on legislation forever just because they have the authority to do so.

A five-judge Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice B R Gavai, along with Justices Surya Kant, Vikram Nath, P S Narasimha and A S Chandurkar, said that if there’s unreasonable delay that blocks the legislative process, courts can step in, but only to push for a decision, not to judge whether the Bill itself is good or bad.

Supreme Court has opined that courts’ cannot set timelines for the President and Governors to grant assent to bills passed by the State legislature. A Constitutional bench led by CJI BR Gavai issued its opinion while answering 13 questions referred to it by the President… pic.twitter.com/N6cCkesziw — ANI (@ANI) November 20, 2025

The Bench stressed that the Constitution deliberately keeps the assent process flexible. If courts start setting hard deadlines, they’d be crossing into territory that belongs to the executive branch, which would mess up the balance of power between institutions.

This ruling came after President Droupadi Murmu approached the Supreme Court with questions following an earlier two-judge verdict in the Tamil Nadu Governor case. That judgment had basically put a time limit on how long Presidents and Governors could take to clear Bills passed by state legislatures.

The President used Article 143 of the Constitution to ask the court: “Does the Governor have to follow the advice given by the Council of Ministers when deciding what to do with a Bill under Article 200?” She also pointed to Article 361, which protects the President and Governors from being questioned in any court about how they use their official powers.