It was President Franklin Roosevelt who remarked that we must take action to save the constitution (of the US) from the (Supreme) Court and the court from itself. We may adapt this cliché to say that in contemporary India (without any personal comment or aspersions on anyone) the office of the prime minister or the chief minister must be saved from its holder.
In a parliamentary system of government based on the Westminster model the Cabinet is the keystone of the political arch as Lowell put it, but according to John Morley the prime minister is the keystone of the Cabinet arch. However, Ivor Jennings said that it would be more accurate to describe him as keystone of the constitution which is as precise a definition as it is picturesque. It is said that the prime minister is central to the formation of the Cabinet, central to its life and central to its death. The government is the master of the country, the prime minister is the master of the government. He is ‘the focal point of public attention and governmental power’. Bagehot said that the Cabinet is ‘a hyphen which joins, a buckle which fastens the legislative part of the state to the executive part’. But Crossman in his Introduction to the 1963 edition of Bagehot’s The English Constitution emphasising the growing importance of the institution of the prime minister said that ‘the hyphen which joins, the buckle which fastens’ is one single man, that is, the prime minister.
That sums up the pre-eminent position of the prime minister in our governmental set-up. The primacy of the prime minister in the parliamentary system of government is beyond doubt. It is the prime minister who rules and governs. The president, like the Crown in the UK, is only the nominal, ceremonial head who represents the nation. The position of the governor in the states is no different except as regards matters which he has to exercise in his discretion. (Reference to the president will include reference to the governor and the prime minister will mean the chief minister also.)
The prime minister’s functions and powers are wide and varied. His position rests on his leadership of the Cabinet/government, in Parliament and in the ruling party, on his being the main channel of communication with the head of state, his control over Cabinet, in selecting ministers, assigning them portfolios and even compelling them to resign, in setting the agenda for Cabinet meetings and taking decisions. He also decides and seeks dissolution of the Lower House of Parliament and a fresh mandate. Some critics in England have, therefore, rightly said that what obtains now is not so much the Cabinet system of government but the system of prime ministerial government. “If the Cabinet discusses anything, it is the prime minister who decides what the collective view of the Cabinet is...... no minister could make a really important move without consulting the prime minister, and if the prime minister wanted to take a certain step the Cabinet minister concerned would either have to agree, argue it out in the Cabinet or resign.” As has been said: It matters not what we say but we must all say the same.
There is no better delineation of the prime minister’s position than what Jennings says in his Cabinet government: “Given a solid party backing and confidence among party leaders, a prime minister wields an authority that a Roman Emperor might envy or a modern dictator strive in vain to emulate.” It is said that he has even the power of destroying his creator — the House of Commons. For if the government is defeated in the Commons he can, instead of resigning, advise the Queen to dissolve the House and go in for a fresh election. The position, however, is held to be slightly different under the Indian constitution in that the president must explore the possibility of having an alternative government in place and if that is not feasible, dissolve the House and set in motion the process of seeking a fresh mandate. Dissolution is a power in the hands of a prime minister to appeal from the legal to the political sovereign.
Apart from being fortified by these conventions about the parliamentary system of government which are part of constitutional law, the office of the prime minister (and of the chief minister of a state) has been formally mentioned in the Constitution which explicitly says that he is the head of the council of ministers. B R Ambedkar speaking in the Constituent Assembly emphasised the concept of collective responsibility as an over-arching principle of the parliamentary system and said that the prime minister is the only sanction through which collective responsibility could be enforced. That requires the enforcement of two principles — that no person be nominated to the Cabinet except on the advice of the prime minister and that no person be retained as minister if the prime minister wanted him to be dismissed. “Unless and until we create an office and endow that office with statutory authority to nominate and dismiss the ministers, there can be no collective responsibility.” The Constitution recognises the pivotal position of the prime minister in the constitutional scheme.
It is also important to remember that a Cabinet enters office and goes out with the prime minister. A change of the prime minister by resignation or death entails a change of Cabinet. It has been rightly observed that while the party system gives the Cabinet its homogeneity, it is the position of the prime minister which gives it solidarity. The prime minister is the leader of the nation and also its voice. One of his major tasks is to formulate the policy and coordinate the working of the government and give it a general direction. The prime minister must know what is happening and ensure that all departments of government work as an integrated whole.
P N Haksar, a distinguished civil servant with a rich experience in the working of government, speaks of three elements required “to give a concrete shape to the social purpose of the Indian State” — the prime ministerial leadership, a vibrant political party and an efficient civil service and, we may add, an independent and upright judiciary. Thus the prime minister is required “to use his perch to manufacture a sense of moral direction and policy clarity behind his ideas and preferences.” This basic requirement of prime ministerial leadership remains and has to remain unchanged and unaffected — whatever the nature of government — whether it is a single party or a coalition or a minority government which is not unknown.
(To be continued)
V Sudhish Pai is a Bangalore-based advocate
