After SC win, TN enacts laws without guv’s nod

The Tamil Nadu government on Saturday notified 10 bills as law, predominantly related to university appointments, the first legislation in India to take effect without a governor’s signature but through the strength of a Supreme Court judgment.

The notification follows a landmark verdict on April 8 in which the Supreme Court declared governor RN Ravi’s inaction on state bills “illegal” and laid down unprecedented timelines to curb gubernatorial overreach.

“History is made as these are the first Acts of any legislature in India to have taken effect without the signature of the governor/President,” P Wilson, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) MP and one of the four senior counsel who argued the case, said on social media website X.

The government moved to notify the laws immediately after the court uploaded its 415-page judgment late on Friday.

Seven of the 10 newly notified laws transfer power from the governor to the state government for appointing and dismissing vice-chancellors at state-run universities. While the governor will remain the chancellor of these institutions, the substantive authority will now rest with the state government, effectively with chief minister MK Stalin.

“Ball will start rolling in appointments very soon,” a senior government official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “The Acts have replaced the term governor and chancellor with government—which is the chief minister really—who will become the sole authority for the functioning of these universities.”

The laws will apply to 18 universities across Tamil Nadu, including prominent institutions such as Madurai Kamaraj University, Periyar University in Salem, and Bharathiar University in Coimbatore.

The verdict has been a significant victory for Stalin’s DMK government, which has been locked in a prolonged standoff with governor Ravi since his appointment in September 2021.

Some of the bills that were notified on Saturday were in limbo for over two years since their initial passage by the assembly between 2020 and 2023.

In what the court later described as a “pocket veto,” governor Ravi had neither granted assent nor returned the bills with specific objections, effectively paralysing the legislative process. When the assembly eventually re-enacted, the governor reserved them for presidential consideration instead of granting the constitutionally mandated assent to re-passed legislation.

Tuesday’s ruling held those actions to be illegal.

Independent legal experts concurred the notification “was the first time ever that bills have been passed by any state government through a direction of the Supreme Court following governor’s refusal to assent the bills. “This was a first of its kind case where the governor’s inaction was held to be malafide. His exercise of power was in question for acting in his own discretion in a matter where he was required to act on the aid and advice of the council of ministers. This judgment is a landmark decision and will guide the course of similar cases pending in the Supreme Court,” said constitutional law expert and senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi.

Following the court ruling, Stalin accused the governor of misusing his position as chancellor to “paint university campuses in saffron”—an apparent reference to the DMK’s allegation that the BJP-led Union government uses governors in opposition-ruled states to interfere with state autonomy.

“The governor must be conscious to not create roadblocks or chokehold the state legislature in order to thwart and break the will of the people for political considerations,” observed the bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan in their judgment.

The court established strict timelines: if a governor withholds assent or reserves a bill for the President’s consideration, this must be done within three months of the bill being presented. If a state legislature re-enacts an identical bill, the governor must grant assent “forthwith” or within a maximum period of one month.

Besides the implication for federalism – governors in several states where the state government is controlled by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) rivals have been in conflict with the administration and legislature – the top court’s order is a significant political boost for Stalin’s DMK ahead of assembly polls due next year.

Increasingly, the DMK and the BJP-led Centre have clashes over high-profile political issues in recent months. Stalin has led efforts by several south Indian states to demand an embargo on the delimitation exercise they contend can reduce their proportionate representation in Lok Sabha, and have waged prominent campaigns against the central government’s language policies in education.

The newly notified Acts include amendments to the Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University Act, Tamil Nadu Fisheries University Act, Tamil Nadu Universities Laws Act, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University Act, Tamil Nadu Dr. Ambedkar Law University Act, Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University Act, and others.

The full order released late on Friday stated that these timelines also extend to the central government, stipulating that the President must decide within three months of receiving a bill from a governor, with any delay requiring an explanation to the concerned state.

The court’s judgment fundamentally clarified the constitutional role of governors, emphasising that they must act on the aid and advice of the council of ministers and do not have discretionary powers under Article 200. “If governors were vested with such discretion, it would enable them to collude with the Union Cabinet and ensure the death of any and all legislation initiated by the state merely by reserving it for the consideration of the President,” the court noted.

Kerala governor Rajendra Arlekar became the first to publicly question the verdict, calling it “judicial overreach” in an interview published by HT on Saturday. He contended that the matter should have been decided by Parliament or referred to a larger constitutional bench.

(With inputs from Abraham Thomas)