EXECUTIVE
Legislature, executive and judiciary are the three main organs of government. Together, they perform the functions of the government, maintain law and order and look after the welfare of the people.
The Constitution ensures that they work in coordination with each other and maintain a balance among themselves. In a parliamentary system, the executive and the legislature are interdependent. The legislature controls the executive, and, in turn, is controlled by the executive.
What is an Executive?
The word executive means a body of persons that looks after the implementation of rules and regulations in actual practice. The organ of government that primarily looks after the function of implementation and administration is called the executive.
Principal Functions of the Executive
Executive is the branch of government responsible for the implementation of laws and policies adopted by the legislature. The executive is often involved in framing of policy.
The executive branch is not just about presidents, prime ministers and ministers. It also extends to the administrative machinery (civil servants).
While the heads of government and their ministers, fixed with the overall responsibility of government policy, are together known as the political executive. Those who are responsible for day to day administration are called the permanent executive.
Types of Executive Systems
Parliamentary
- Principles of collective leadership.
- Prime ministers is the head of the government.
- Head of the state may be called as Monarch or President.
- He is the leader of the majority party in legislature.
- He is accountable to the legislature.
- Countries like Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, Portugal etc.
Semi presidential
-Principles of collective leadership.
- President is the head of the state.
- Prime minister is the head of the government.
- PM & his council of ministers are responsible to legislature.
- Countries like France, Russia, Sri Lanka etc.
Presidential
- Principles of individual leadership.
- President is the head of the state.
- He is also head of the government.
- The President is directly elected by the people.
- He is not accountable to legislature.
- Countries like United States, Brazil, and most nations in Latin America.
Parliamentary Executive in India
Why India adopted Parliamentary System
When the Constitution of India was written, India already had some experience of running the parliamentary system under the Acts of 1919 and 1935.
Presidential executive puts much emphasis on the president as the chief executive and as source of all executive power. There is always the danger of personality cult in the presidential executive, but in the parliamentary form there are many mechanisms that ensure that the executive will be answerable to and controlled by the legislature or people’s representatives.
So the Constitution adopted the parliamentary system of executive for the governments both at the national and State levels.
Parliamentary system
There is a President who is the formal Head of the state of India and the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers, which run the government at the national level.
At the State level, the executive comprises the Governor and the Chief Minister and Council of Ministers.
Powers and Position of President
Article 74 (1) : There shall be a Council of Ministers with the Prime Minister at the head to aid and advise the President who shall in the exercise of his functions, act in accordance with such advice.
Provided that the President may require the Council of Ministers to reconsider such advice and the President shall (means BINDING in this context) act in accordance with the advice tendered after such reconsideration.
The Constitution of India vests the executive power of the Union formally in the President, but the President exercises these powers through the Council of Ministers headed by the Prime Minister.
The President is elected for a period of five years through indirect elections. This means that the president is elected not by the ordinary citizens but by the elected MLAs and MPs. This election takes place in accordance with the ‘‘principle of proportional representation with single transferable vote.’’
The President can be removed from office only by Parliament through impeachment, which requires a special majority.
The only ground for impeachment is violation of the constitution.
Discretionary Powers of the President
Constitutionally, the President has a right to be informed of all important matters and deliberations of the Council of Ministers.
The Prime Minister is obliged to furnish all the information that the President may call for.
The President often writes to the Prime Minister and expresses his views on matters confronting the country.
There are three situations where president can exercise the powers using his or her own discretion.
1. The President can send back the advice given by the Council of Ministers and ask the Council to reconsider the decision. In doing this, the President acts on his or her own discretion. Although, the Council can still send back the same advice and the President would then be bound by that advice.
2. The President also has veto power by which he can withhold or refuse to give assent to Bills (other than Money Bill) passed by the Parliament. President of India enjoys three veto powers -Absolute veto, Suspensive veto, and Pocket veto. Especially, pocket veto gives the president an informal power to use it in a very effective manner because, in this case president neither refuses nor rejects nor returns the bill, but simply keeps the pending for an indefinite period.
3. When after an election, no leader has a clear majority in the Lok Sabha. then President has to decide whom to appoint as the Prime Minister. In such a situation, the President has to use his own discretion in judging who really may have the support of the majority or who can actually form and run the government.
Vice President of India
-> The Vice President is elected for five years.
-> Election method is similar to that of the President, the only difference is that members of State legislatures are not part of the electoral college.
-> The Vice President may be removed from his office by a resolution of the Rajya Sabha passed by a majority and agreed to by the Lok Sabha.
-> Acts as the ex officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha and takes over the office of the President when there is a vacancy by reasons of death, resignation, removal by impeachment or otherwise. The Vice President acts as the President only until a new President is elected.
Prime Minister and Council of Ministers
In the parliamentary form of executive, it is essential that the Prime Minister has the support of the majority in the Lok Sabha. This support by the majority also makes the Prime Minister very powerful.
The Prime Minister decides who will be the ministers in the Council of Ministers. The Prime Minister allocates ranks and portfolios to the ministers. In the same manner, Chief Ministers of the States choose ministers from their own party or coalition.
The Prime Minister and all the ministers have to be members of the Parliament.
If someone becomes a minister or Prime Minister without being an MP, such a person has to get the parliament ‘within six months.’
Size of the Council of Ministers
Initially there was no restrictions on the number of the members of the council of ministers, but later through 91st amendment act 2003, ‘‘the total number of ministers including the prime minister, in the central council of ministers shall not exceed 15% of the total strength of the Lok Sabha (Article-75(1A)) or assembly, in the case of states (Article-164(1B)).
Collective Responsibility
The council of ministers is collectively responsible to the Lok Sabha. It means if a ministry loses confidence of Lok Sabha is obliged to resign.
Collective responsibility is based on the principle of the solidarity of the cabinet. It implies that a vote of no confidence even against a single minister leads to the resignation of the entire Council of Ministers.
The death or resignation of the Prime Minister automatically brings about the dissolution of the Council of Ministers but the demise, dismissal or resignation of a minister only creates a ministerial vacancy.
The Prime Minister acts as a link between the Council of Ministers and the President as well as the Parliament.
The constitutional obligation of the Prime Minister to communicate to the President all decisions of the Council of Ministers relating to the administration of the affairs of the Union and proposals for legislation.
Coalition Governments
Since 1989, we have witnesses many coalition governments in India.
These developments have resulted in a growing discretionary role of the President in the selection of Prime Ministers.
The coalitional nature of Indian politics in this period has necessitated much more consultation between political partners, leading to erosion of prime ministerial authority.
It has also brought restrictions on various prerogatives of the Prime Minister like choosing the ministers and deciding their ranks and portfolios.
Even the policies and programmes of the government cannot be decided by the Prime Minister alone. Political parties of different ideologies come together both as pre-poll and post-poll allies to form a government. Policies are framed after a lot of negotiations and compromises among the allies.
In this entire process, the Prime Minister has to act more as a negotiator than as leader of the government.
Permanent Executive
Bureaucracy : The Executive organ of the government includes the Prime Minister, the ministers and a large organization called the bureaucracy or the administrative machinery.
In Democracy
The elected representatives and the ministers are in charge of government and the administration is under their control and supervision.
In the parliamentary system, the legislature also exercises control over the administration.
The administrative officers cannot act in violation of the policies adopted by the legislature.
It is the responsibility of the ministers to retain political control over the administration. India has established professional administrative machinery.
Indian Bureaucracy
It consists of the All-India services, State services, employees of the local governments, and technical and managerial staff running public sector undertakings.
The Union Public Service Commission has been entrusted with the task of conducting the process of recruitment of the civil servants for the government of India. Similar public service commissions are provided for the States also.
Members of the Public Service Commissions are appointed for a fixed term. Their removal or suspension is subject to a thorough enquiry made by a judge of the Supreme Court.
While efficiency and merit are the norms for recruitment, the Constitution also ensures that all sections of the society including the weaker sections have an opportunity to be part of the public bureaucracy. For this purpose, the Constitution has provided for reservation of jobs for the SCs and STs. Subsequently, reservations have also been provided for women and other backward classes.
How to sensitize to the demands and expectations of the ordinary citizen
Only if the democratically elected government controls the bureaucracy, some of these problems can be effectively handled. On the other hand, too much political interference turns the bureaucracy into an instrument in the hands of the politician.
Though the Constitution has created independent machinery for recruitment, many people think that there is no provision for protecting the civil servants from political interference in the performance of their duties.
It is also felt that enough provisions are not there to ensure the accountability of the bureaucracy to the citizen.
There is an expectation that measures like the Right to Information may make the bureaucracy a little more responsive and accountable.
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