The Supreme Court has finally stepped back from a dangerous path it had wandered onto—one where judicial overreach risked trespassing into the exclusive constitutional domain of the President and Governors. This is not a minor legal quibble but a fundamental issue that strikes at the heart of India’s separation of powers. For months, constitutional experts, commentators, and even the President of India herself warned the judiciary that it cannot set deadlines for constitutional authorities whose powers flow directly from the Constitution, not from judicial directions. Yet it took a Presidential Reference and national scrutiny for the judiciary to acknowledge what should always have been obvious. The trouble began with the Supreme Court’s April 2025 judgment on Tamil Nadu’s petition, where a two-judge bench—invoking the sweeping powers of Article 142—held Governor RN Ravi’s withholding of 10 Bills as “illegal and arbitrary” and went on to do the unthinkable: fix deadlines for Governors and even the President to act on Bills. Governors were given one month and the President three months to make decisions, and if these deadlines were not met, the court granted “deemed assent,” effectively creating a new constitutional doctrine out of thin air. The judgment even suggested that courts could issue writs of mandamus against the President—an unprecedented proposition in the history of the republic. This was a clear conflict with Articles 200 and 201, which outline the constitutional functions of Governors and the President with respect to Bills passed by state legislatures. These provisions do not allow courts to micromanage or supervise constitutional discretion. By policing timelines and directing outcomes, the judiciary was straying far beyond judicial review and deep into executive territory, thereby disturbing the delicate federal balance.
It was President Droupadi Murmu who issued the strongest institutional pushback. In May 2025, she invoked Article 143—a rarely used constitutional tool—to refer 14 key questions to the Supreme Court. At the heart of her reference was a pointed question: can courts impose timelines on the President or Governors when the Constitution does not? That this had to be asked at all underscores the scale of judicial overreach displayed earlier. The five-judge Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice BR Gavai has now restored constitutional sanity. In its opinion on the Presidential Reference, the Bench made it clear that under Article 200, a Governor has only three options: grant assent, return the Bill with objections, or reserve it for the President. These actions are inherently non-justiciable, meaning courts cannot examine the merits of these decisions. Judicial intervention is permitted only when there is prolonged, unexplained, or mala fide inaction, and even then, the court can direct only that an action be taken—not dictate the content or outcome. The same protective constitutional shield applies to the President under Article 201. This ruling is not merely judicial humility; it is judicial realism. It corrects a worrying trend where Article 142 was being used like an institutional sledgehammer. Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar was not exaggerating when he likened Article 142 to a “nuclear weapon” in the judiciary’s hands—capable of overriding constitutional boundaries if misused. The larger constitutional point is simple: Governors and the President are not subordinate institutions. Their discretionary roles exist precisely to maintain the federal and constitutional balance, and courts cannot place them under bureaucratic supervision or impose arbitrary deadlines on their constitutional functions. To do so would distort the very design of the Constitution. This course correction is therefore not just desirable; it is essential. It reaffirms that the judiciary’s role is to interpret the Constitution, not rewrite it; that the executive has its own space; and that the President’s authority cannot be reduced to a litigant answerable to judicial timelines. In an era where institutional boundaries are constantly pushed, the Supreme Court’s latest stance is a welcome restoration of constitutional order.
