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Union Government
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The Government of India, officially known as the Union Government, and also known as the Central Government, was established by the Constitution of India, and is the governing authority of the union of 28 states and seven union territories, collectively called the Republic of India. It is seated in New Delhi, the capital of India.
The government comprises three branches: the executive, the legislative and the judiciary. The executive branch headed by the President, who is the Head of State and exercises his or her power directly or through officers subordinate to him.[1] The Legislative branch or the Parliament consists of the lower house, the Lok Sabha, and the upper house, the Rajya Sabha, as well as the president. The Judicial branch has the Supreme Court at its apex, 21 High Courts, and numerous civil, criminal and family courts at the district level. India is the largest democracy in the world.
The basic civil and criminal laws governing the citizens of India are set down in major parliamentary legislation, such as the Civil Procedure Code, the Indian Penal Code, and the Criminal Procedure Code. The union and individual state governments consist of executive, legislative and judicial branches. The legal system as applicable to the federal and individual state governments is based on the English Common and Statutory Law. India accepts International Court of Justice jurisdiction with several reservations. By the 73rd and 74th amendments to the constitution, the Panchayat Raj system has been institutionalised for local governance.
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India has a parliamentary system of government based largely on that of the United Kingdom (Westminster system). However, eminent scholars including the first President Dr Rajendra Prasad have raised the question "how far we are entitled to invoke and incorporate into our written Constitution by interpretation the conventions of the British Constitution".[2]
The legislature is the Parliament. It is bicameral, consisting of two houses: the directly-elected 545-member Lok Sabha ("House of the People"), the lower house, and the 250-member indirectly-elected and appointed Rajya Sabha ("Council of States"), the upper house. The parliament enjoys parliamentary supremacy.
All the members of the Council of Ministers as well as the Prime Minister are members of Parliament. If they are not, they must be elected within a period of six months from the time they assume their respective office. The Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers are responsible to the Lok Sabha, individually as well as collectively.
Every individual minister is in charge of a specific ministry or ministries (or specific other portfolio). He is responsible for any act of failure in all the policies relating to his department. In case of any lapse, he is individually responsible to the Parliament. If a vote of no confidence is passed against the individual minister, he has to resign. Individual responsibility can amount to collective responsibility. Therefore, the Prime Minister, in order to save his government, can ask for the resignation of such a minister and the people have a say.
The Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers are jointly accountable to the Lok Sabha. If there is a policy failure or lapse on the part of the government, all the members of the council are jointly responsible. If a vote of no confidence is passed against the government, then all the ministers headed by the Prime Minister have to resign.
Executive branch of government is the part of government that has sole authority and responsibility for the daily administration of the state bureaucracy. The division of power into separate branches of government is central to the republican idea of the separation of powers. The separation of powers system is designed to distribute authority away from the executive branch – an attempt to preserve individual liberty in response to tyrannical leadership throughout history.
The executive power is vested on mainly the President of India by Article 53(1) of the constitution. The President enjoys all constitutional powers and exercises them directly or through officers subordinate to him as per the aforesaid Article 53(1).The President is to act in accordance with aid and advise tendered by the head of government (Prime Minister of India) and his or her Council of Ministers (the cabinet) as described in Article 74 (Constitution of India).
The Constitution vests in the President of India all the executive powers of the Central Government. The President appoints the Prime Minister the person most likely to command the support of the majority in the Lok Sabha (usually the leader of the majority party or coalition). The President then appoints the other members of the Council of Ministers, distributing portfolios to them on the advice of the Prime Minister.
The Council of Ministers remains in power during the 'pleasure' of the President. In practice, however, the Council of Ministers must retain the support of the Lok Sabha. If a President were to dismiss the Council of Ministers on his or her own initiative, it might trigger a constitutional crisis. Thus, in practice, the Council of Ministers cannot be dismissed as long as it commands the support of a majority in the Lok Sabha.
The President is responsible for making a wide variety of appointments. These include:
The President also receives the credentials of Ambassadors and High Commissioners from other countries. The President is the de jure Commander in Chief of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India can grant a pardon to or reduce the sentence of a convicted person for one time, particularly in cases involving punishment of death. The decisions involving pardoning and other rights by the president are independent of the opinion of the Prime Minister or the Lok Sabha majority. In most other cases, however, the President exercises his or her executive powers on the advice of the Prime Minister.
The Vice-President of India is the second-highest ranking government official in the executive branch of the Government of India, after the President. The Vice-President also has the legislative function of acting as the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha.
The Vice-President acts as President in the event of death, resignation, or removal of the President until a new President is chosen by the electoral college for maximum 6 months. During this period, the Vice President shall not perform the duties of the office of the Chairman of Rajya Sabha.
India's independent judicial system began under the British, and its concepts and procedures resemble those of Anglo-Saxon countries. The Supreme Court of India consists of a Chief Justice and 30 associate justices, all appointed by the President on the advice of the Chief Justice of India. The jury trials were abolished in India in early 1960s, after the famous case KM Nanavati v State of Maharashtra, for reasons of being vulnerable to media and public pressure, as well as to being misled
Unlike its US counterpart, the Indian justice system consists of a unitary system at both state and federal level. The judiciary consists of the Supreme Court of India, High Courts of India at the state level, and District Courts and Sessions Courts at the district level.
The Supreme Court of India has original jurisdiction, appellate jurisdiction and advisory jurisdiction. Its exclusive original jurisdiction extends to any dispute between the Government of India and one or more states, or between the Government of India and any state or states on one side and one or more states on the other, or between two or more states, if and insofar as the dispute involves any question (whether of law or of fact) on which the existence or extent of a legal right depends.
In addition, Article 32 of the Indian Constitution gives an extensive original jurisdiction to the Supreme Court in regard to enforcement of Fundamental Rights. It is empowered to issue directions, orders or writs, including writs in the nature of habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibition, quo warranto and certiorari to enforce them. The Supreme Court has been conferred with power to direct transfer of any civil or criminal case from one State High Court to another State High Court, or from a court subordinate to another State High Court.
Public Interest Litigation (PIL) : Although the proceedings in the Supreme Court arise out of the judgments or orders made by the Subordinate Courts, of late the Supreme Court has started entertaining matters in which interest of the public at large is involved, and the Court may be moved by any individual or group of persons either by filing a Writ Petition at the Filing Counter of the Court, or by addressing a letter to Hon'ble The Chief Justice of India highlighting the question of public importance for invoking this jurisdiction.
The Civil Services of India is the civil service and the permanent bureaucracy of the Government of India. The executive decisions are implemented by the Indian civil servants. Civil servants are employees of the Government of India and not Parliament of India. Not all employees of the Government of India are civil servants.
In parliamentary democracy of India, the ultimate responsibility for running the administration rests with the elected representatives of the people which are the ministers. These ministers are accountable to the legislatures which are also elected by the people on the basis of universal adult franchise. The ministers are indirectly responsible to the people themselves. But the handful of ministers cannot be expected to deal personally with the manifold problems of modern administration. Thus the ministers lay down the policy and it is for the civil servants to carry out this policy.
The Cabinet Secretary of India is the senior most civil servant in the country. The Cabinet Secretary is the Ex-Officio and Chairman of the Civil Services Board of the Republic of India; the chief of the Indian Administrative Service and head of all civil services under the rules of business of the Government of India. The Cabinet Secretary is arguably India's most powerful bureaucrat and right hand of Prime Minister of India.
The Cabinet Secretariat is responsible for the administration of the Government of India Transaction of Business Rules, 1961 and the Government of India Allocation of Business Rules 1961, facilitating smooth transaction of business in Ministries/Departments of the Government by ensuring adherence to these rules. The Secretariat assists in decision-making in Government by ensuring Inter-Ministerial coordination, ironing out differences amongst Ministries/Departments and evolving consensus through the instrumentality of the standing/adhoc Committees of Secretaries. Through this mechanism new policy initiatives are also promoted.
The Cabinet Secretariat ensures that the President of India, the Vice-President and Ministers are kept informed of the major activities of all Departments by means of a monthly summary of their activities. Management of major crisis situations in the country and coordinating activities of the various Ministries in such a situation is also one of the functions of the Cabinet Secretariat.
India has a quasi federal government, with elected officials at the federal (national), state and local levels. On a national level, the head of government, the Prime Minister, is elected in-directly by the people, through a general election where the leader of the majority winning party is selected to be the Prime Minister. All members of the federal legislature, the Parliament, are directly elected. Elections in India take place every five years by universal adult suffrage.
State governments in India are the governments ruling States of India and the main minsters in the state are the chief ministers. Power is divided between central government and state governments. State government's legislature is bicameral in 6 states and unicameral in the rest. Lower house is elected with 5 years term, while upper house if exists 1/3 of the members elected every 2 years with 6 year term.
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