The hearings on the Presidential Reference that followed the Supreme Court judgment on April 8, 2025, clarifying the constitutional position on the powers of the Governor and the President in providing assent to Bills passed by State Assemblies, have largely confirmed that Governors should not indefinitely withhold assent to such Bills. Addressing the 14 questions posed in the Presidential Reference, the observations of the five-judge Bench largely converged on the constitutional principles elucidated in April. The question by the Chief Justice of India, B.R. Gavai, on whether the Court should “sit powerless” while Governors make “competent State legislatures defunct” echoed the core concern in the April judgment — that constitutional offices cannot paralyse democratic governance through inaction. While States’ counsel largely argued along political lines based on which parties governed them, this did not detract from the thorough examination of Articles 200 and 201 during the proceedings. The argument that the Constitution’s silence on specific timelines in these Articles does not grant unlimited discretion to Governors remains compelling. When the Solicitor-General argued that Governors serve as a “check on hasty legislation”, the Bench’s response also indicated the tension between this position and democratic principles. Justice Vikram Nath’s observation, that Governors “cannot sit over the wisdom of the legislature indefinitely”, was succinct.