Who, among the following Presidents of India, sent back the Post Office (Amendment) Bill, 1986 for the reconsideration of the Parliament?

Correct — A, R. Venkataraman. The Indian Post Office (Amendment) Bill of 1986 would have allowed the interception of postal articles on broad grounds, and it drew heavy criticism as a threat to press freedom. It reached President Zail Singh in December 1986, and he neither signed it nor returned it, holding it until his term ended in July 1987 — the one clear instance of a pocket veto in Indian constitutional practice. Because he never returned it, the Bill was still pending when R. Venkataraman succeeded him, and it was Venkataraman who sent it back for reconsideration in January 1990. The government of the day did not press it further and the Bill lapsed. The act of returning a Bill therefore belongs to Venkataraman, not to his predecessor.

• (b)Shankar Dayal Sharma — Sharma became President in 1992, after the Bill had already been returned and abandoned. He is not associated with it.
• (c)Giani Zail Singh — Zail Singh is the President associated with this Bill, but for the opposite act. He withheld assent and returned nothing, which is what a pocket veto means. Sending a Bill back for reconsideration is the suspensive veto, and he never exercised it here.
• (d)K. R. Narayanan — Narayanan held office from 1997 to 2002 and is remembered for returning the advice on President's rule in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, not for this Bill.

Article 111 gives the President three courses on a Bill passed by both Houses: assent, withholding of assent, or return of a non-Money Bill with a message asking the Houses to reconsider it. If the Houses pass it again, with or without amendment, assent must follow — so the return is a suspensive veto, not an absolute one. The Constitution sets no time limit for the President to act, and that silence creates the fourth, unwritten course: simply not acting, which practice calls the pocket veto.

The item lives on the difference between two devices that are often taught together and remembered as one. Zail Singh's handling of this Bill is the illustration of the pocket veto precisely because nothing was sent back; a President who returns a Bill has exercised the suspensive veto instead. Both names are in the option list, so the question is testing whether that distinction is held clearly. The two other returns worth knowing are Rajendra Prasad's of the PEPSU Appropriation Bill in 1954 and A. P. J. Abdul Kalam's of the Office of Profit Bill in 2006, which Parliament re-passed and he then signed.

• Article 111 allows the President to assent, withhold assent, or return a non-Money Bill for reconsideration.
• A returned Bill, if passed again by both Houses, must receive assent — the veto is suspensive.
• Zail Singh neither assented to nor returned the Indian Post Office (Amendment) Bill, 1986, before leaving office in July 1987.
• R. Venkataraman returned that Bill for reconsideration in January 1990, and it was not proceeded with.
• Money Bills cannot be returned for reconsideration, and Bills reserved by a Governor under Article 201 follow a separate route.

• Treating the pocket veto and the return of a Bill as the same act.
• Attaching every fact about this Bill to the President most often named with it.
• Assuming a returned Bill can be blocked permanently — a re-passed Bill must be assented to.

A polity item that puts two Presidents connected with the same Bill in the same option list, so the answer turns on which constitutional act each performed.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under Article 111, if both Houses pass a returned Bill again, the President

  • (a)may withhold assent permanently
  • (b)must give assent
  • (c)may return it a second time
  • (d)must refer it to the Supreme Court

  Answer(b) must give assent — which is why the return is called a suspensive veto.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which Bill did President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam return to Parliament for reconsideration in 2006?

  • (a)The Office of Profit Bill
  • (b)The Right to Information Bill
  • (c)The Prevention of Terrorism Bill
  • (d)The Competition Bill

  Answer(a) The Office of Profit Bill — Parliament passed it again and he then gave assent.