An ordinance is a temporary law. A governor can issue one when the state legislature is not in session. D.C. Wadhwa researched the practice and found that the Governor of Bihar issued 256 ordinances between 1967 and 1981. Some were “kept alive for periods ranging between one to 14 years by re-promulgation from time to time.”
On January 2, 2017, a bench of seven judges of the Supreme Court decided Krishna Kumar Singh v. State of Bihar. It held that “re-promulgation of ordinances is a fraud on the Constitution and a subversion of democratic legislative processes.”