On 13 July 2016 a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court decided the Arunachal Pradesh political crisis in Nabam Rebia v. Deputy Speaker. It held that a Speaker facing a pending notice for his own removal under Article 179(c) cannot adjudicate Tenth Schedule disqualification petitions, and that the Governor cannot use Article 174 to summon or advance an Assembly session at his own discretion against the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers. The Court quashed the Governor's actions and restored the status quo ante.
On 8 April 2025 a two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court held that a Governor has neither a pocket veto nor an absolute veto over bills passed by a State Legislature, read Article 200 through the aid-and-advice discipline of Article 163, and prescribed outer time-limits for the Governor's and the President's courses of action. Using Article 142, it deemed ten Tamil Nadu bills to have received assent. The correctness of that judgment — the timelines and the deemed-assent device especially — was then referred to a Constitution Bench under Article 143, whose advisory opinion of 20 November 2025 disapproved both. This piece reads the holding and the live doubt over its finality.
On 11 May 2023 a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court unanimously delivered Subhash Desai v. Principal Secretary, Governor of Maharashtra — the apex court's most consequential Tenth Schedule ruling since Kihoto Hollohan. The Court held the Governor's 30 June 2022 floor-test call unjustified, declined to restore the Thackeray Government because of Uddhav Thackeray's voluntary resignation, struck down the Speaker's recognition of a rival whip on the principle that the whip is appointed by the political party and not the legislature party, and referred Nabam Rebia to a seven-judge bench. A close reading of the architecture, the doctrinal lines, and the unfinished business.