UPSC Essentials Mains Answer Practice (Week 132) — GS 2 : Questions on advisory opinion of SC on governor’s power and Higher Education Bill

QUESTION 1

The 2025 advisory opinion of the Supreme Court rejected “deemed-assent” and refused to impose strict timelines on the Governor under Article 200, but said courts may examine “prolonged and unexplained delay”. Discuss the constitutional and federal significance of this ruling.

QUESTION 2

Discuss how the HECI (Higher Education Commission of India) Bill could impact accountability, quality, and autonomy in Indian higher education.

QUESTION 1: The 2025 advisory opinion of the Supreme Court rejected “deemed-assent” and refused to impose strict timelines on the Governor under Article 200, but said courts may examine “prolonged and unexplained delay”. Discuss the constitutional and federal significance of this ruling.

Note: This is not a model UPSC answer. It only provides you with thought process which you may incorporate into the answers.

Introduction:

— The Supreme Court’s advisory opinion to the Presidential Reference in its latest pronouncement on the limits of governor’s power and discretion in India.

— In a balancing act, the court ruled out “deemed assent” and said that the judiciary cannot place timelines on the Governor to act on bills, but said that prolonged and unexplained delay can be examined, even if the content of the Governor’s decision was beyond judicial review.

Body:

You may incorporate some of the following points in your answer:

— The powers of the Governor and the President over bills flow from Articles 200 and 201 of the Constitution, respectively. Article 200 allows the Governor to “assent”, “withhold assent”, “return the Bill” or “reserve” it for the President, and requires reservation if, “in the opinion of the Governor”, the bill affects High Court powers. Article 201 sets the President’s options when a Bill is reserved.

— Over the years, Courts have held that Article 163 binds the Governor to advice except in cases the Constitution itself “carves out” discretion — Article 200 is one such space. The contours of gubernatorial discretion have thus steadily consolidated the principle that the Governor is not a parallel political actor, and has only a few narrow zones to exercise discretion.

Background

— The first case that touched on Articles 200 and 201 set the procedural framework for the Governor’s role. In Kameshwar Singh (1952), the court was hearing challenges to the Bihar Land Reforms Act, which abolished the zamindari system and transferred estates to the state. Under Article 31(3), laws of this kind had to be reserved for the President’s assent. The question that the court had to decide was whether the Governor had to first give assent before sending the bill to the President.

— A shift came in Shamsher Singh (1974). The case involved two probationary judges whose services were ended through orders issued “in the name of the Governor”. Relying on an earlier order of the SC in which termination orders were held to be on the “satisfaction” of the President or Governor, the appellants in Shamsher Singh argued that their termination required the Governor’s personal satisfaction. They contended that the order was not placed before the Governor, and since the Governor’s personal, non-delegated satisfaction was required, the order issued in his name was legally deficient and therefore void. The SC rejected that idea. It held that the Governor acts on the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers in all matters unless the Constitution says otherwise.

— Nabam Rebia (2016) is the restatement of these limits. The Arunachal Pradesh crisis, where a large group of Congress MLAs broke ranks in 2015, triggered attempts to unseat both the Speaker and the sitting Chief Ministers. Acting without advice, the Governor advanced the Assembly session and issued a message dictating the legislative agenda, including a motion to remove the Speaker. All of this played out while disqualification petitions were pending. The Speaker responded by disqualifying 14 dissidents, but the Deputy Speaker reversed this decision. A parallel session then removed the Speaker. The SC treated these actions as a constitutional red flag.

— Now, in its opinion in the Presidential Reference, the SC rejected this analogy. It held that Keisham dealt with the Speaker acting in a quasi-judicial capacity, which is a different function. Article 200 involves a gubernatorial role that includes discretion. The SC said that setting deadlines for the Governor, or creating “deemed assent”, would amount to rewriting the Constitution. Long delays can still be questioned, but courts cannot control the timing or replace constitutional options with judicial innovations.

(Source: How Supreme Court has defined contours of gubernatorial power, over the years)

Points to Ponder

Read more about the Governor

Read about about constitutional provisions of the Governor

Related Previous Year Questions

Discuss the essential conditions for exercise of the legislative powers by the Governor. Discuss the legality of re-promulgation of ordinances by the Governor without placing them before the Legislature. (2022)

Whether the Supreme Court Judgment (July 2018) can settle the political tussle between the Lt. Governor and elected government of Delhi? Examine. (2018)

QUESTION 2: Discuss how the HECI (Higher Education Commission of India) Bill could impact accountability, quality, and autonomy in Indian higher education.

(file image)

Note: This is not a model UPSC answer. It only provides you with thought process which you may incorporate into the answers.

Introduction:

— The Indian higher education landscape stands on the brink of its most significant regulatory overhaul in decades. With the Parliament session underway, the proposed Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) Bill, a cornerstone of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, is poised for discussion and potential passage.

— While framed as a move towards efficiency and global competitiveness, a closer examination of the Bill’s architecture and the philosophy underpinning NEP 2020 reveals deep-seated concerns about accelerating privatisation, increasing centralisation, and exacerbating socio-economic divides in one of the world’s largest education systems.

Body:

You may incorporate some of the following points in your answer:

— The HECI proposes to replace existing bodies like the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) with a four-layered structure:

(i) the National Higher Education Regulatory Council (NHERC)

(ii) the National Accreditation Council (NAC)

(iii) the Higher Education Grants Council (HEGC), and

(iv) the General Education Council (GEC).

— On paper, this appears to be a more efficient regulatory approach. However, detractors claim that it creates a complex, resource-intensive bureaucracy. This occurs at a time when public funding for education has been decreasing. The new apparatus may syphon scarce resources away from the main objective of providing quality and accessible education, thereby creating a void that private companies can fill.

— The NEP 2020’s guiding principle of “light but tight” regulation is especially problematic. It looks to be “light” on unrestricted private admission and operational freedoms, but “tight” on academic autonomy, reduced public funding, research goals, and instructional methods.

— The policy’s emphasis on “self-governance” and “autonomy” for institutions is increasingly perceived as a euphemism for “self-finance”. In this setting, autonomy appears to be less about academic freedom and more about commercial freedom—the ability to set fees based on market principles and pursue private revenue streams.

— The NEP’s quest for a “learning outcome approach” has been critiqued for viewing knowledge generation as a simple production output, a metric derived from private business economics. This monetisation of education undermines the subjective, collaborative, and often ethereal process of learning shared by students, professors, and the entire academic community.

— The proposed governance model, Boards of Governors (BoG) for autonomous institutions, raises more red flags. While designed to professionalise management, the BoGs are allowed broad responsibilities without stating their educational credentials. The method also encourages the hiring of contract teachers. The trend towards privatisation of education and contractualization of teaching personnel is not academic reform, but rather a commercial tactic to cut the “cost of knowledge production,” endangering job security, academic independence, and, ultimately, teaching quality.

Conclusion:

— The Indian higher education system certainly requires agility and quality enhancement. The goal of inclusive knowledge production, vital for a democratic and diverse nation like India, hangs in the balance. The passage of this Bill may well determine whether higher education remains a public good or becomes a privatised commodity.

— The question is whether the path charted by the HECI, under the auspices of NEP 2020, is one that leads to inclusive excellence or towards a stratified, commercialised system that reproduces and deepens existing inequalities.

(Source: Behind promise of reform, the HECI Bill promotes privatisation of higher education)

Points to Ponder

Read more about higher education and NEP

Read all provisions of HECI Bill

Related Previous Year Questions

“Recent amendments to the Right to Information Act will have a profound impact on the autonomy and independence of the Information Commission”. Discuss. (2020)

Discuss the essentials of the 69th Constitutional Amendment Act and anomalies, if any, that have led to recent reported conflicts between the elected representatives and institution of Lieutenant Governor in the administration of Delhi. Do you think that this will give rise to a new trend in the functioning of the Indian Federal Politics? (2016)

Previous Mains Answer Practice

UPSC Essentials: Mains answer practice — GS 3 (Week 132)

UPSC Essentials: Mains answer practice — GS 3 (Week 131)

UPSC Essentials: Mains answer practice — GS 2 (Week 130)

UPSC Essentials: Mains answer practice — GS 2 (Week 131)

UPSC Essentials: Mains answer practice — GS 1 (Week 131)

UPSC Essentials: Mains answer practice — GS 1 (Week 130)

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