1. Rising Tensions in the States
Across several Indian states, tensions emerged between elected state governments and their respective Governors. State governments alleged that Governors were delaying assent to key legislative bills passed by the state legislatures. In many instances, bills remained pending for extended periods without clear explanations.
Such delays effectively stalled legislative initiatives of democratically elected governments. States increasingly perceived this practice as a form of indirect veto exercised by unelected constitutional authorities, thereby intensifying Centre–State tensions within India’s federal framework.
2. The Tamil Nadu Governor Case (2025)
In response to prolonged delays in gubernatorial assent, the Government of Tamil Nadu approached the Supreme Court. The state challenged the Governor’s inaction on several bills passed by the legislature.
In 2025, the Supreme Court delivered its judgment in State of Tamil Nadu v. Governor of Tamil Nadu. The Court attempted to address the growing constitutional controversy surrounding delays in assent.
Key observations of the Court included:
- Governors and the President are expected to act within a “reasonable time” when dealing with legislative bills.
- In exceptional circumstances, the Court suggested that Article 142 could allow courts to treat certain bills as having received “deemed assent.”
- The judgment also indicated that actions (or inaction) by Governors and the President could be subject to judicial review.
Many states welcomed the judgment as a necessary safeguard against prolonged constitutional inaction. However, the Union government and several constitutional experts expressed concern that the Court had expanded judicial authority into areas traditionally governed by constitutional conventions. While the ruling offered immediate relief in specific cases, it also generated uncertainty regarding established constitutional practices.
3. Presidential Intervention: Article 143 Reference
In light of the legal ambiguity created by the judgment, President Droupadi Murmu invoked Article 143 of the Constitution, which allows the President to seek the Supreme Court’s advisory opinion on questions of law or constitutional interpretation of public importance.
This became the 16th Presidential Reference to the Supreme Court. The President sought clarity on several crucial constitutional questions, including:
- What options are available to Governors and the President when a bill is presented to them?
- Can courts prescribe specific timelines for constitutional authorities to act?
- Is the concept of “deemed assent” constitutionally valid?
- To what extent are decisions under Articles 200 and 201 subject to judicial review?
A five-judge Constitution Bench, led by the Chief Justice of India, was constituted to examine these issues. The proceedings signaled that the Court would need to revisit and clarify the implications of its earlier ruling.
4. Preliminary Question: Validity of the Presidential Reference
At the outset, some legal experts argued that the Presidential Reference was improper. They contended that it functioned as a disguised appeal against the earlier Tamil Nadu Governor judgment.
The Constitution Bench rejected this argument. It noted that several earlier Presidential References had arisen from concrete constitutional disputes. The Court described the present matter as a “functional reference” because it directly affects the everyday functioning of the offices of the Governor and the President.
The Court therefore held the Reference to be constitutionally valid. It also acknowledged that the earlier judgment had created uncertainty by appearing to depart from principles laid down by larger benches.
While recognizing that advisory opinions may depart from earlier judicial interpretations if necessary, the Bench clarified that the purpose of the Reference was not to rehear the previous case but to clarify the constitutional framework going forward.
The Court also declined to answer certain questions that it considered excessively broad or unnecessary, thereby narrowing the scope of its advisory opinion.
5. Options Available to a Governor Under Article 200
A central issue before the Court concerned the range of actions available to a Governor when a bill is presented for assent under Article 200.
The Union government argued that the Governor possesses four distinct options:
- Grant assent.
- Reserve the bill for the President.
- Withhold assent.
- Return the bill for reconsideration.(If not a Money bill)
Several state governments contended that there are only three practical options:
- Grant assent.
- Reserve the bill for the President.
- Return the bill to the legislature for reconsideration.
According to this view, the Governor cannot simply reject a bill outright without engaging the legislature.
The Court agreed with the states’ interpretation. It held that if the Governor chooses to withhold assent, the bill must be returned to the legislature for reconsideration, thereby preserving a constitutional dialogue between the elected legislature and the constitutional head.
However, the Court also corrected a key aspect of the earlier Tamil Nadu Governor ruling. The previous judgment had suggested that once a legislature re-passes a bill after reconsideration, the Governor is bound to grant assent.
The advisory opinion clarified that even after reconsideration, the Governor retains two options:
- Grant assent, or
- Reserve the bill for the President.
This ensures that bills raising serious constitutional or federal concerns can still undergo scrutiny at the national level.
6. Nature of the Governor’s Discretion
Another major issue concerned the extent of the Governor’s discretionary powers.
Some interpretations suggested that Article 200 grants the Governor substantial discretion. Others argued that the Governor must generally act on the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers, except in explicitly specified situations.
The Court relied on the precedent of Nabam Rebia v. Deputy Speaker (2016), which recognised the existence of limited but real discretionary powers for the Governor.
The Bench clarified that when deciding whether to reserve a bill for the President, the Governor may exercise independent constitutional judgment. This power is intended to safeguard the Constitution in exceptional circumstances.
At the same time, the Court emphasized that such discretion is strictly limited. The Governor cannot indefinitely delay decisions or use inaction as a political tool. The office is not intended to function as a rival centre of political authority within the state.
The Court also rejected the argument that Governors and the President operate merely as ceremonial figures comparable to the British monarch. Instead, India’s constitutional design requires them to exercise judgment within clearly defined limits.
7. Whether Courts Can Impose Timelines
One of the most contentious issues involved the question of judicially imposed timelines for decisions under Articles 200 and 201.
The earlier Tamil Nadu Governor judgment had interpreted the phrase “as soon as possible” to justify strict judicial deadlines.
The Constitution Bench revisited the constitutional text and noted that only two relevant time indicators exist:
- Under Article 200, a Governor who withholds assent must return the bill “as soon as possible.”
- Under Article 201, if the President returns a reserved bill with suggestions, the state legislature must reconsider it within six months.
Importantly, the Constitution does not prescribe a fixed time limit for Governors or the President to act.
The Court concluded that the phrase “as soon as possible” cannot be converted into a rigid deadline applicable in all cases. It also criticised reliance on the Keisham Meghachandra case, noting that the Speaker’s quasi-judicial role in disqualification proceedings is fundamentally different from a Governor’s constitutional role in legislative assent.
Furthermore, the Court rejected attempts to rely on executive circulars issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs, emphasizing that executive instructions cannot override constitutional provisions.
8. Rejection of the “Deemed Assent” Doctrine
The earlier judgment had raised the possibility that courts could treat bills as having received “deemed assent” in cases of prolonged delay.
The advisory Bench rejected this doctrine.
It held that Article 142 cannot be used to artificially create assent where the Constitution expressly assigns that power to the Governor or the President. Allowing courts to effectively grant assent would violate the principle of separation of powers.
Accordingly, courts cannot treat a bill as enacted simply because of delay in decision-making.
9. Scope of Judicial Review
The Court next addressed the extent to which decisions under Articles 200 and 201 are subject to judicial review.
The Bench adopted a restrained approach. It observed that the process of assent to bills constitutes a constitutional dialogue between institutions, rather than a typical administrative decision.
Therefore, courts generally cannot review the merits of a Governor’s or the President’s decision to grant assent, withhold assent, or reserve a bill.
Such review would require courts to analyse legislative proposals before they become law, which the Bench described as constitutionally inappropriate.
Where significant constitutional doubts arise prior to enactment, the Court indicated that the proper mechanism is a Presidential Reference under Article 143.
10. Judicial Remedy for Prolonged Inaction
Despite limiting judicial intervention, the Court recognised a practical constitutional problem: a Governor could potentially stall legislation indefinitely by taking no action.
To address this possibility, the Court permitted limited judicial review of prolonged inaction.
If a Governor delays a decision for an unreasonably long period without justification, courts may:
- Examine the delay, and
- Direct the Governor to take a decision within a reasonable time.
However, courts cannot instruct the Governor how to decide. They may require a decision to be made, but not dictate its outcome.
The Court also clarified the scope of Article 361, which provides immunity to Governors from personal legal proceedings. While the Governor cannot be personally summoned to court, judicial review may still examine whether the constitutional office has acted within its lawful authority.
11. Constitutional Significance of the Advisory Opinion
The advisory opinion ultimately represents a careful recalibration of constitutional doctrine.
It retreats from several expansive aspects of the earlier Tamil Nadu Governor judgment—particularly regarding judicially imposed timelines, deemed assent, and extensive judicial review.
At the same time, it affirms that:
- Governors and the President possess limited but genuine constitutional discretion, especially in reserving bills for presidential consideration.
- The judiciary retains a narrow supervisory role to prevent indefinite constitutional inaction.
Overall, the judgment emphasises that India’s constitutional system depends on institutional cooperation rather than confrontation. Governors, Presidents, state governments, and courts must each operate within their respective constitutional boundaries to preserve the balance of India’s federal democracy.
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Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.
Globally, around 80% of wastewater flows back into the ecosystem without being treated or reused, according to the United Nations.
This can pose a significant environmental and health threat.
In the absence of cost-effective, sustainable, disruptive water management solutions, about 70% of sewage is discharged untreated into India’s water bodies.
A staggering 21% of diseases are caused by contaminated water in India, according to the World Bank, and one in five children die before their fifth birthday because of poor sanitation and hygiene conditions, according to Startup India.
As we confront these public health challenges emerging out of environmental concerns, expanding the scope of public health/environmental engineering science becomes pivotal.
For India to achieve its sustainable development goals of clean water and sanitation and to address the growing demands for water consumption and preservation of both surface water bodies and groundwater resources, it is essential to find and implement innovative ways of treating wastewater.
It is in this context why the specialised cadre of public health engineers, also known as sanitation engineers or environmental engineers, is best suited to provide the growing urban and rural water supply and to manage solid waste and wastewater.
Traditionally, engineering and public health have been understood as different fields.
Currently in India, civil engineering incorporates a course or two on environmental engineering for students to learn about wastewater management as a part of their pre-service and in-service training.
Most often, civil engineers do not have adequate skills to address public health problems. And public health professionals do not have adequate engineering skills.
India aims to supply 55 litres of water per person per day by 2024 under its Jal Jeevan Mission to install functional household tap connections.
The goal of reaching every rural household with functional tap water can be achieved in a sustainable and resilient manner only if the cadre of public health engineers is expanded and strengthened.
In India, public health engineering is executed by the Public Works Department or by health officials.
This differs from international trends. To manage a wastewater treatment plant in Europe, for example, a candidate must specialise in wastewater engineering.
Furthermore, public health engineering should be developed as an interdisciplinary field. Engineers can significantly contribute to public health in defining what is possible, identifying limitations, and shaping workable solutions with a problem-solving approach.
Similarly, public health professionals can contribute to engineering through well-researched understanding of health issues, measured risks and how course correction can be initiated.
Once both meet, a public health engineer can identify a health risk, work on developing concrete solutions such as new health and safety practices or specialised equipment, in order to correct the safety concern..
There is no doubt that the majority of diseases are water-related, transmitted through consumption of contaminated water, vectors breeding in stagnated water, or lack of adequate quantity of good quality water for proper personal hygiene.
Diseases cannot be contained unless we provide good quality and adequate quantity of water. Most of the world’s diseases can be prevented by considering this.
Training our young minds towards creating sustainable water management systems would be the first step.
Currently, institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) are considering initiating public health engineering as a separate discipline.
To leverage this opportunity even further, India needs to scale up in the same direction.
Consider this hypothetical situation: Rajalakshmi, from a remote Karnataka village spots a business opportunity.
She knows that flowers, discarded in the thousands by temples can be handcrafted into incense sticks.
She wants to find a market for the product and hopefully, employ some people to help her. Soon enough though, she discovers that starting a business is a herculean task for a person like her.
There is a laborious process of rules and regulations to go through, bribes to pay on the way and no actual means to transport her product to its market.
After making her first batch of agarbathis and taking it to Bengaluru by bus, she decides the venture is not easy and gives up.
On the flipside of this is a young entrepreneur in Bengaluru. Let’s call him Deepak. He wants to start an internet-based business selling sustainably made agarbathis.
He has no trouble getting investors and to mobilise supply chains. His paperwork is over in a matter of days and his business is set up quickly and ready to grow.
Never mind that the business is built on aggregation of small sellers who will not see half the profit .
Is this scenario really all that hypothetical or emblematic of how we think about entrepreneurship in India?
Between our national obsession with unicorns on one side and glorifying the person running a pakora stall for survival as an example of viable entrepreneurship on the other, is the middle ground in entrepreneurship—a space that should have seen millions of thriving small and medium businesses, but remains so sparsely occupied that you could almost miss it.
If we are to achieve meaningful economic growth in our country, we need to incorporate, in our national conversation on entrepreneurship, ways of addressing the missing middle.
Spread out across India’s small towns and cities, this is a class of entrepreneurs that have been hit by a triple wave over the last five years, buffeted first by the inadvertent fallout of demonetization, being unprepared for GST, and then by the endless pain of the covid-19 pandemic.
As we finally appear to be reaching some level of normality, now is the opportune time to identify the kind of industries that make up this layer, the opportunities they should be afforded, and the best ways to scale up their functioning in the shortest time frame.
But, why pay so much attention to these industries when we should be celebrating, as we do, our booming startup space?
It is indeed true that India has the third largest number of unicorns in the world now, adding 42 in 2021 alone. Braving all the disruptions of the pandemic, it was a year in which Indian startups raised $24.1 billion in equity investments, according to a NASSCOM-Zinnov report last year.
However, this is a story of lopsided growth.
The cities of Bengaluru, Delhi/NCR, and Mumbai together claim three-fourths of these startup deals while emerging hubs like Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, and Jaipur account for the rest.
This leap in the startup space has created 6.6 lakh direct jobs and a few million indirect jobs. Is that good enough for a country that sends 12 million fresh graduates to its workforce every year?
It doesn’t even make a dent on arguably our biggest unemployment in recent history—in April 2020 when the country shutdown to battle covid-19.
Technology-intensive start-ups are constrained in their ability to create jobs—and hybrid work models and artificial intelligence (AI) have further accelerated unemployment.
What we need to focus on, therefore, is the labour-intensive micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME). Here, we begin to get to a definitional notion of what we called the mundane middle and the problems it currently faces.
India has an estimated 63 million enterprises. But, out of 100 companies, 95 are micro enterprises—employing less than five people, four are small to medium and barely one is large.
The questions to ask are: why are Indian MSMEs failing to grow from micro to small and medium and then be spurred on to make the leap into large companies?
At the Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME), we have advocated for a National Mission for Mass Entrepreneurship, the need for which is more pronounced now than ever before.
Whenever India has worked to achieve a significant economic milestone in a limited span of time, it has worked best in mission mode. Think of the Green Revolution or Operation Flood.
From across various states, there are enough examples of approaches that work to catalyse mass entrepreneurship.
The introduction of entrepreneurship mindset curriculum (EMC) in schools through alliance mode of working by a number of agencies has shown significant improvement in academic and life outcomes.
Through creative teaching methods, students are encouraged to inculcate 21st century skills like creativity, problem solving, critical thinking and leadership which are not only foundational for entrepreneurship but essential to thrive in our complex world.
Udhyam Learning Foundation has been involved with the Government of Delhi since 2018 to help young people across over 1,000 schools to develop an entrepreneurial mindset.
One pilot programme introduced the concept of ‘seed money’ and saw 41 students turn their ideas into profit-making ventures. Other programmes teach qualities like grit and resourcefulness.
If you think these are isolated examples, consider some larger data trends.
The Observer Research Foundation and The World Economic Forum released the Young India and Work: A Survey of Youth Aspirations in 2018.
When asked which type of work arrangement they prefer, 49% of the youth surveyed said they prefer a job in the public sector.
However, 38% selected self-employment as an entrepreneur as their ideal type of job. The spirit of entrepreneurship is latent and waiting to be unleashed.
The same can be said for building networks of successful women entrepreneurs—so crucial when the participation of women in the Indian economy has declined to an abysmal 20%.
The majority of India’s 63 million firms are informal —fewer than 20% are registered for GST.
Research shows that companies that start out as formal enterprises become two-three times more productive than a similar informal business.
So why do firms prefer to be informal? In most cases, it’s because of the sheer cost and difficulty of complying with the different regulations.
We have academia and non-profits working as ecosystem enablers providing insights and evidence-based models for growth. We have large private corporations and philanthropic and funding agencies ready to invest.
It should be in the scope of a National Mass Entrepreneurship Mission to bring all of them together to work in mission mode so that the gap between thought leadership and action can finally be bridged.