The Supreme Court on Thursday questioned why Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi kept several bills pending with him for more than three years before declaring that he would withhold assent and refer some of them to the president, Live Law reported.

The governor appeared to have “adopted his own procedure” to decide on the bills, Justice JB Pardiwala of the Supreme Court remarked.

A bench comprising Pardiwala and Justice R Mahadevan was hearing two writ petitions filed by the Tamil Nadu government against the governor for obstructing the Legislative Assembly by withholding assent to 10 bills passed between 2020 and 2023.

“What is something so gross in the bills which the governor took three years to find?” the court asked on Thursday.

The 10 re-enacted bills, mostly related to higher education and including provisions to remove the governor as the chancellor of state universities, were sent to the president on November 18, 2023. The president approved one, rejected seven and left two unaddressed.

The court on Thursday said that the governor, by merely declaring that he would withhold assent and not returning the bills to the Assembly, would frustrate Article 200 of the Constitution, Bar and Bench reported. The constitutional provision deals with the governor’s powers to give or withhold assent to bills passed by the state legislature.

Pardiwala told Attorney General R Venkataramani, representing Ravi, that he needed to “show factually” why the governor withheld assent.

“Either you show us from some original files, or some other documents, some contemporaneous record available with the office of the governor as to what was looked into, what was discussed, what were the lacunae,” Live Law quoted the judge as saying.

Pardiwala pointed out that Ravi’s declaration about withholding assent to the bills came shortly after the Supreme Court ruled in a separate case pertaining to Punjab that governors could not veto the Assembly by delaying decisions on bills.

The court had in November 2023 directed then Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit to decide on the four bills pending before him. It had noted that in a parliamentary form of democracy, real power rests with the elected representatives while the governor is the “titular head of the state”.

On Thursday, the Tamil Nadu government argued before the court that the governor, by indefinitely withholding assent to bills, was holding the state to ransom, Bar and Bench reported.

The attorney general began making his submissions on behalf of the governor on Thursday and will continue his arguments on Friday.

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