CHENNAI: Governor R N Ravi has reserved for the President’s consideration the Tamil Nadu Siddha Medical University Bill, which was passed again by the state Assembly this October in the same form as it was originally introduced in 2022, TN government sources confirmed.
The move assumes significance after the recent opinion offered by the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in a Presidential Reference that timelines cannot be set for governors or the President to act on bills but the governor also cannot exercise a “pocket veto” by sitting on a Bill indefinitely.
Ravi’s latest move is likely to be contested by the state government in the Supreme Court. The apex court is still hearing petitions against the interim stay ordered by a single judge of the Madras High Court on the operationalising of nine of the 10 TN bills to which a two-judge SC bench had granted “deemed assent” in April.
The bills had been pending with the Raj Bhavan for a long time. The two-judge bench had also stipulated timelines by which governors and the President must act on bills.
The TN Siddha Medical University Bill was earlier reserved for the President’s consideration in November 2023 after Governor Ravi initially sought clarifications on it. Governor Ravi had raised concerns that the Bill, which named the chief minister as the varsity vice-chancellor and not him, contradicted the provisions of the National Commission for Indian System of Medicine Act, 2020, and National Commission for Homoeopathy Act, 2020.
In August 2025, Health Minister Ma Subramanian told reporters that the Bill had been returned to the state by Governor Ravi with suggestions for four changes.
Sources at the time said the President seemed to have invoked powers under Article 201 to direct the governor to return the Bill to the legislature. Subramanian had said that the communication received by the health secretary in this regard, in the third week of August, was taken up with the law department.
In October, the Assembly adopted a resolution rejecting the remarks and modifications suggested and readopted the Bill. The Bill was subsequently sent to the Governor.
This story is reported by T Muruganandham of The New Indian Express.
