Stalin slams Centre for seeking SC opinion on deadlines for Governor
President Droupadi Murmu sought the Supreme Court’s advisory opinion on 14 questions to settle the law on whether the President and governors need to follow timelines to decide on state bills
Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin on Thursday attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Union government over the presidential reference questioning the April 8 Supreme Court verdict that laid down a timeline for the President and governors to decide on state bills, saying it reveals a sinister intent.
President Droupadi Murmu exercised a rare constitutional provision and sought the Supreme Court’s advisory opinion on 14 questions to settle the law on whether the President and governors need to follow timelines to decide on state bills referred for consent when the Constitution does not prescribe it.
In a post on X, Stalin said the questions raised in the reference reveal the BJP-led central government’s “sinister intent” to distort the Constitution’s basic distribution of powers and incapacitate the state legislatures dominated by parties opposed to the ruling party at the Centre. “Thus, it poses a clear exigent threat to State autonomy,” Stalin said. He vowed to continue to fight on the issue.
The chief minister said the presidential reference attempts to subvert the constitutional position settled by the Supreme Court in the Tamil Nadu governor’s case. “This attempt [reference] clearly exposes the fact that the Tamil Nadu governor acted at the BJP’s behest to undermine the people’s mandate,” Stalin said. “This is nothing but a desperate attempt to weaken democratically elected state governments by placing them under the control of governors serving as agents of the Union government. It also directly challenges the majesty of law and the authority of the Supreme Court as the final interpreter of the Constitution.”
Stalin questioned why the timelines should be objected to, and whether the BJP was seeking to legitimise its governors’ obstruction by allowing indefinite delays in bill assent. He wondered if the Union government intends to paralyse non-BJP state legislatures.
Stalin said the country stands at a critical juncture. He cited “grave circumstances” and urged non-BJP-ruled states and party leaders to join Tamil Nadu’s legal struggle to defend the Constitution.
On April 8, the Supreme Court struck down Tamil Nadu governor RN Ravi’s move to reserve 10 re-enacted bills for presidential assent after withholding their approval. Tamil Nadu’s Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-led government and Ravi have been at loggerheads over withheld assent to bills. Ten of the bills were forwarded to the President after the assembly re-enacted them. The court said that these bills should be considered as having deemed assent. The Supreme Court’s April 8 verdict called Ravi’s move to withhold assent to the bills erroneous and violative of the Constitution.
On April 12 the notified 10 bills became 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.
VC search panels to report to government
In related developments in Tamil Nadu, the state on May 13 notified that search committees appointed for vice chancellors (VCs) in four varsities (Anna University, Madurai Kamaraj University, Annamalai University and Tamil Nadu Teachers’ Education University) need to submit recommendations directly to the government and not the governor who is the chancellor.
This comes following the SC verdict and seven out of the 10 new laws pertains to the power of appointing and dismissing VCs to be taken away from the governor and vesting it with the government. The government has extended the tenure of these panels till August 13, 2025, to complete their selection process and recommend a panel of three names for each varsity to the government.
Though three-member search panels were constituted and notified for these universities between 2022 and 2025, the process was stalled because of the standoff between the Governor and the state government. The governor insisted on a nominee to be included by the UGC chairperson as the fourth member.
PIL in HC challenges new Acts
A plea has been filed in the Madras HC by a lawyer from Tirunelveli that seeks to declare the newly notified Acts (which takes away the powers of the governor to appoint vice chancellors to state universities) as illegal. A division bench of justices G R Swaminathan and V Lakshminarayanan on May 14 directed the government to file the reply within a week.
P Wilson, Senior Advocate and Rajya MP appearing for the Higher Education Department, submitted that there is no need to hear the matter as the challenge in the Writ Petition relates to the constitutionality of the 10th amendment University Acts, which has come into force on 11th April 2025. The selection process of the Vice Chancellor is nothing but the administration of the universities, and therefore, the amendment act is well within the state legislature’s power to enact.
