Tamil Nadu Protests Presidential Reference; In India’s TV War Rooms, the ‘Generals’ Were Loud, Facts Optional and the Enemy Always in Retreat; Op. Tukey Now Underway

The India Cable: 2heads

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A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by Tanweer Alam, Sidharth Bhatia, Pratik Kanjilal, Seema Chishti, Sushant Singh, MK Venu, and Siddharth Varadarajan | Contributing writer: Kalrav Joshi, with additional inputs by Anirudh SK

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Over to Siddharth Varadarajan for today’s Cable

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Snapshot of the day

May 15, 2025

Siddharth Varadarajan

President Droupadi Murmu has invoked a rarely used constitutional provision to seek the Supreme Court’s opinion on a 14-point Presidential Reference regarding whether the President and Governors must act within fixed timelines on state Bills referred for assent, even though the Constitution does not explicitly prescribe any such deadlines.

The development follows the apex court’s landmark judgment in State of Tamil Nadu vs Governor of Tamil Nadu ruling in April, where it held that Governors must act within a reasonable timeframe on Bills and, for the first time, stated that the President should take a decision on Bills referred under Article 201 within three months of receiving them. “In case of any delay beyond this period, appropriate reasons would have to be recorded and conveyed” to the concerned state, the Court said, while declaring Tamil Nadu Governor R N Ravi’s action of reserving 10 Bills for presidential consideration after they were reconsidered and passed again by the state Assembly as “illegal” and “erroneous.”

In her reference to the top court, President Murmu has asked whether the actions of the President under Article 201 and of Governors under Article 200 are justiciable in the absence of explicit timelines in the Constitution. She has