President Droupadi Murmu Seeks Supreme Court Clarification on Powers of President and Governors Amid Rising Judiciary-Executive Tensions

President Droupadi Murmu Seeks Supreme Court Clarification on Powers of President and Governors Amid Rising Judiciary-Executive Tensions

Last Updated May - 17 - 2025, 04:05 PM | Source : Fela News

President Droupadi Murmu asks Supreme Court to clarify 14 legal questions on the powers and timelines for President and Governors in assenting bills, challengin

As tensions escalate between the judiciary and the executive, President Droupadi Murmu has sought the Supreme Court’s guidance on 14 legal questions concerning the powers of the President and Governors. The queries focus on issues such as setting deadlines for the assent to bills by Governors and the President, and the scope of the Supreme Court’s extraordinary powers under Article 142 to deliver complete justice. Invoking Article 143 of the Constitution, the President has asked for advice on the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Tamil Nadu governor case. “How can the Supreme Court impose a timeline when the Constitution does not provide one?” President Murmu questioned the apex court.

According to questions obtained by India Today TV, some key points raised include:

• Whether the Supreme Court can replace the constitutional powers of the President or Governor with its own under Article 142.
  
  

• If states are abusing the Supreme Court’s “plenary power” against the Centre.
  
  

• How timelines for the President and Governor’s decisions can be prescribed.
  
  

• The justiciability of Governor decisions under Article 200.
  
  

The Centre has criticized the Supreme Court’s April 8 order as a “clear overreach” and requested a constitution bench be formed to clarify the matter. Last month, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar expressed concern over the Court’s use of Article 142 to impose deadlines on the President and Governor to clear 10 bills passed by the Tamil Nadu Assembly without executive approval, calling it “judicial overreach.” He described the situation as unprecedented, stating, “We never expected democracy to come to this point, where the President is forced to decide within a time frame or the bills automatically become law.”

In its ruling on the Tamil Nadu governor, the Supreme Court directed that when a Governor reserves a bill for the President under Article 201, a decision must be made within three months. The Court also reprimanded the Tamil Nadu Governor for delays in acting on bills and clarified that the President does not have a “pocket veto,” thus must act within a reasonable time to grant or withhold assent.

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