In a first, State brings laws into force based on Supreme Court ordering ‘deemed assent’ of Governor

The Tamil Nadu government on Saturday notified ten State Acts in the official gazette on the basis of a Supreme Court judgment that declared the laws as “deemed to have been assented” to by Governor RN Ravi..This was the first such instance of a government in India operationalising a legislation without the assent of the Governor or the President, acting instead on the strength of a Supreme Court ruling under Article 142 of the Constitution.The notification was issued a day after the apex court published its judgment where it strongly criticised the Governor’s prolonged delay in assenting to the bills and his eventual, unconstitutional act of referring them to the President after they were re-enacted by the legislature.."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 but on the strength of the judgement of the Supreme Court," Senior Advocate and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) MP P Wilson wrote on X..The gazette notifications explicitly cited the Supreme Court’s April 8 judgment which held that once a bill has been returned by the Governor and then re-passed by the legislature, the Governor is constitutionally bound to assent to it and cannot refer it to the President.“All actions of the Hon’ble President after date of reserving the above said Bill is non-est in law and shall be deemed to have been assented to by the Hon’ble Governor on the date on which the said Bill was presented to him for assent,” the State government noted in its publication..The nine Acts notified today primarily concern State control over universities, with several replacing the Governor as Chancellor of key institutions, including the Tamil Nadu Dr Ambedkar Law University, the MGR Medical University, and the Tamil Nadu Fisheries University.The Supreme Court bench comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan had exercised its extraordinary powers under Article 142 to declare that the Bills were deemed to have been assented to on November 18, 2023, the date they were re-submitted to the Governor after being re-enacted.“We are left with no other option but to exercise our inherent powers under Article 142… in view of the scant respect shown by the Governor to the decision of this Court in State of Punjab and other extraneous considerations that appear to be writ large in the discharge of his functions,” the bench had said..Among the ten Bills, one was originally passed as far back as 2020, and the others between 2022 and 2023. All were withheld by the Governor without timely communication under Article 200, leading the Tamil Nadu government to move the Supreme Court. The Court not only pulled up the Governor for the delay but also declared the reservation of the re-enacted Bills for presidential consideration to be unconstitutional and void..By formally notifying these Acts on the basis of a Supreme Court directive, Tamil Nadu has now set a federal precedent in asserting legislative autonomy vis-à-vis the office of the Governor. .[Read Judgement]