India, Nov. 20 -- The Supreme Court on Thursday held that not only did the Tamil Nadu governor judgment in April this year create "confusion and doubt" on the issue of gubernatorial and presidential assent to state bills, but that the court's 2023 ruling in the Punjab governor case also departed from the binding larger-bench precedent.

The Punjab ruling was authored by then Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud and that bench also had Justice JB Pardiwala, who penned the Tamil Nadu ruling.

Underscoring principles of judicial discipline, the five-judge Constitution bench declared that neither judgment had engaged adequately, or at all, with earlier decisions of larger benches in Kameshwar (1952), Valluri (1979) and Hoechs...