On the floor of the House, the Prime
Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has
expressed in the last session of the
parliament, that it is the Coalition
Compulsion on account of which he
was not able to take an effective step
to stop the activities of his Cabinet
colleague Raja, who was involved in
2 G spectrum Scam. It means that
in order to keep him in majority a
Prime Minister may ignore
unconstitutional act of his Cabinet
colleague.
There was a lot of hue and cry in the
Parliament on this issue in the last
session which is also likely to
continue in the coming sessions and
since Dr. Manmohan Singh
commands the majority, by heading
a coalition Govt., if he does not resign
he will set a wrong Parliamentary
practice of not resigning although
owning collective responsibility of the
cabinet in a parliamentary
democracy.
The founding fathers of our
Constitution seemed to be aware of
providing a mechanism to deal with
a situation like this and it is that
scheme of the Constitution which is
required to be brought to the notice
of the President of India by hedding
light on the obscure by the members
of the Lok Sabha and suggest her to
Letter to Hon’ble members of Parliament:
exercise her powers to dismiss the
Prime Minister in the present
situation. Those Hon.ble members of
Lok Sabha who are in opposition or
some of them should file a
memorandum before the President
of India, inviting her attention to her
powers to dismiss the Prime
Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh .The
Constitutional scheme is like this;
Under Article 53 of Constitution the
executive power of the Union vests
in the President. The President of
India is also a constituent of the
Parliament in as much as Article 79
of Constitution provides that the
Parliament consists of the President
PUCL BULLETIN, SEPTEMBER 2011 5
and two Houses to be known
respectively as the Council of States
and House of the People.
Article 75(1) of the Constitution
provides that thePrime Minister shall
be appointed by the President and
other ministers shall be appointed by
him on the advice of the Prime
Minister. Article 75(2) of the
Constitution provides that the
.Ministers shall hold office during
the pleasure of the President..
Article 75(3) speaks of collective
responsibility of the Council of
Ministers.
The Supreme Court in State of
Karnataka v Union of India,AIR 1978
SC 68 has held: .The object of
collective responsibility is to make
the whole body of persons holding
ministerial office collectively, or, if one
may so put it, .vicariously
responsible for such acts of the
others, as are referable to their
collective violation so that, even if an
individual may not be personally
responsible for it, yet he will be
deemed to share the responsibility
with those who may have actually
committed some wrong.
Article 367(1) reads as follows:
367 (1) INTERPRETATION -Unless
the context otherwise requires, the
General Clauses Act, 1897, shall,
subject to any adaptations and
modifications that may be made
therein under article 372, apply for
the interpretation of this Constitution
as it applies for the interpretation of
an act of the Legislature of the
Dominion of India.
Section (16) of the General Clauses
Act is relevant and read as follows:
.Where, by any [Central Act] or
Regulation, a power to make any
appointment is conferred, then,
unless a different intention appears,
the authority having [for the time
being] power to make the
appointment shall also have power
to suspend or dismiss any person
appointed [whether by itself or any
other authority] in exercise of that
power.
Article 78 is most relevant which
reads as follows:
.It shall be the duty of the of the
Prime Minister .
(a) 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;
(b) To furnish such information
relating to the administration
of the affairs of the Union and
proposals for legislations as
the President may call for ;
and
(c) If the President so requires,
to submit for the
consideration of the Council
of Ministers any matter on
which a decision has been
taken by a Minister but which
has not been considered by
the Council.
In the context of the power of the
Chief Justice UnderArticle 229 of the
Constitution, which provides that the
appointment of officers and servants
of the High Court shall be made by
the Chief Justice of the court, the
Supreme Court in, Pradyut Kumar
Vs Chief Justice of Calcutta, 1956
AIR 285 has ruled as follows :
.It must be mentioned, at this stage,
that so far as the power of dismissal
is concerned, the position under the
Constitution of 1950 is not open to
any argument or doubt.Article 229(1)
which in terms vests the power of
appointment in the Chief Justice is
equally effective to vest in him the
power of dismissal.
This results from S.16 General
ClausesAct which by virtue of Article
367(1) of the Constitution applies to
the construction of the word
.appointment. in Art. 229(1). Section
16(1), General Clauses Act clearly
provides that the power of
.appointment. includes the power .to
suspend or dismiss..
The Supreme Court in the aforesaid
judgment has considered the
application of Article 367(1) of the
Constitution to the construction of
the word . appointment. in relation
to the powers of the Chief Justice to
appoint officers and servant of High
Court, but so far as the constitutional
scheme in relation to the power of
appointment of a Prime Minister and
other Ministers by the President is
concerned, there are other provisions
also namely, Article 53, 75(1), 75(2),
75(3) and 78, which read together,
leave no room for doubt, that the
President of India does has the
power to dismiss the Prime Minister.
It may be emphasized here even at
the cost of some repetition that
ministers hold office during the
pleasure of the President .There
is a collective responsibility of the
Council of Ministers. The Prime
Minister is the first among the
equals. He is appointed by the
President, and other ministers are
appointed by the President on his
advice. In order to ensure the holding
of the ministers, .during the
pleasure of the President., it has
been made the Duty of the Prime
Minister, under article 78 of
Constitution:
(d) 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;
(e) To furnish such information
relating to the administration of
the affairs of the Union and
proposals for legislations as the
President may call for ; and
(f) If the President so requires, to
submit for the consideration of
the Council of Ministers any
matter on which a decision has
been taken by a Minister but
which has not been considered
by the Council.
The President exercises his/her
functions in accordance with the
advice of the council of Ministers
appointed by the President. The
power to appoint the Council of
PUCL BULLETIN, SEPTEMBER 2011 6
Ministers has to be exercised by the
President independently as head of
theState to enable him or her to have
a council of ministers which may
advice him to exercise those powers.
Except in the case of appointment
of Chaudhary Charan Singh as Prime
Minister in 1979 by Neelam Sanjeeva
Reddy there has never been any
problem in exercise of this power by
the various Presidents of India from
1952 to 1989, as one party or the
other used to have absolute majority.
The era of Coalition Govts. started
from 1989. Since then all the Govts.
have been coalition Govts. R.
Venkataraman was the President
during the initial period of coalition
Govts. and he had to his credit the
appointments of as many as 3 Prime
Ministers of coalition Govts.
In his celebrated book .My
Presidential Years. R.
Venkataraman has observed:-
.In my view, the President is not a
Public Service Commission
examining the merits of candidates
for the Prime Minister.s office. He has
only to satisfy himself whether the
person chosen as Prime Minister
has prima facie strength in the Lok
Sabha to carry on the government
and is free from any proven
constitutional disability. To allow the
President to stray from this narrow
path would lead to a distortion of the
Constitution. He further said in the
same book: .while the monarchy in
Britain is hereditary and
unconnected with parties, the
President of India is elected by the
majority party and his actions could
be partisan or liable to be questioned
as partisan. On the other hand, if he
followed strictly the criterion of calling
the largest party, he would avoid the
charge of partisanship. Besides, the
President would not be able to play
politics by calling a party other than
the largest on the basis of his
subjective assessment that such a
party, in his opinion, was capable of
providing a stable govt..
It is thus clear that the President of
India while appointing a Prime
Minister has only to satisfy himself
whether the person chosen as Prime
Minister by him prima facie has
strength in the Lok Sabha to carry
on the Govt. After a person is
appointed as Prime Minister and
proves majority to form a Govt. the
person appointed remains under the
constant scrutiny of the President of
India.
V.P. Singh was appointed by
Venkataraman as the first Prime
Minister of India of a coalition Govt.
It is interesting to see in his book as
to how he did it:
.At about 7 p.m, V.P. Singh, Madhu
Dandvate, Dinesh Goswami and a
few others called on me. Dandvate,
who was the chairman of the meeting
which elected V.P. Singh as leader,
handed over to me a letter to the
effect . He also handed over another
letter saying that the BJP with 85
members and the Left Front with 52
members had pledged their support
to a National Front government .I
replied that .As the largest single
party had not staked its claim to form
the government, I invite you
(V.P.Singh) as the leader of the
second largest party to form the
government and take a vote of
confidence of the House within 21-
30 days.. V.P. Singh wished to have
30 days and I agreed..
Thereafter he appointed
Chandrashekhar as the second
Prime Minister of a coalition Govt.
on 10th Nov 1990. Following
communiqué was issued by
Rashtrapati Bhawan on that day:
.Consequent on the fall of the National
Front government headed by Shri
V.P. Singh, the President asked the
Leader of the Opposition and the
Congress (i) whether he was able to
form a viable government . The
Congress (I) did not stake a claim
for forming the government but offered
unconditional support to Shri
ChandraShekhar…..
The President has therefore invited
Shri Chandra Shekhar to form the
Government and prove his majority
in the House of the People on or
before 30 November, 1990..
The trend had been set and the
criteria had been laid down by R.
Venkataraman for the successive
Presidents of India to exercise the
power of appointment of a Prime
Minister. On that criteria were
appointed even DeveGowdaand I.K.
Gujaral. But for the fact that the
largest single party nominated these
two persons to be appointed Prime
Minister they would not have been
so appointed. They did not represent
the majority opinion of the People of
India, as those persons appointed as
Prime Ministers who were appointed
during the period prior to Coalition
Era.
Dr. Manmohan Singh has never been
elected as a member of Lok Sabha .
He had been thrust upon by the
largest single party of UPA.
Therefore, like Deve Gowda and
I.K.Gujral he has been appointed by
the President of India on the criteria
laid down by R.Venkataraman and
he also does not represent the
People of India .
The compulsion of coalition, is likely
to continue as in the near future, no
party seem to be able to secure a
majority in the Lok Sabha . This
compulsion of coalition cannot be
permitted to be an excuse for
succeeding Prime Ministers. Dr.
Manmohan Singh must have
resigned. He cannot continue to be
the Prime Minister with impunity for
the misdeeds of his Cabinet
colleague Raja.
The President of India is the true
representative of the People .He is
elected by an electoral college
consisting of . (a) The elected
members of both Houses of
Parliament (b) the elected members
of the Legislative Assemblies of the
States. Article 55 of the Constitution
provides that as far as practicable
there shall be uniformity in the scale
of representation of different states
at the Election of the President, and
PUCL BULLETIN, SEPTEMBER 2011 7
for the purpose of securing such
uniformity, the number of votes which
each elected member of Parliament
and Legislative Assembly of each
State is entitled to cast at such
election, has to be determined in a
manner provided in that Article, and
the election of the President is held
in accordance of the system of
Proportional Representation by
means of Single Transferable Vote.
Hence, the President of India truly
represents .We the People of
India..
It is .We the People of India. who
authorize him to appoint a Prime
Minister who has to hold office
.during the Pleasure of the
President. and is given input by the
Prime Minister by making it his duty
Under Article 78 to inform the
President relevant information on the
basis of which the President shall
exercise the .Pleasure..
In any case, the President has an
option of asking the Prime Minister
to resign even if she does not straight
away wish to dismiss him, to give
way to appoint another Prime
Minister .The power to appoint a
Prime Minister subject to his proving
the majority is there. But merely
because a person appointed as
Prime Minister commands majority
cannot lead to the conclusion that
the President of India will become a
mute spectator. In the situation like
this, the attention of the President
of India should be invited so that she
may see that this Prime Minister is
removed and she appoints another
Prime Minister, may be on the same
criteria on which Prime Ministers
have been appointed during the era
of coalition Governments that is by
selecting another person to be
appointed as Prime minister who is
nominated by the largest single party
subject to his or her proving the
majority in the Lok Sabha.
