WORKING OF

POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS

BY RUMIT GARG

1.PRESIDENT

Pranab Mukherjee

The President of India is the formal head of the executive, legislature and judiciary of India and is the commander-in-chief of the Indian Armed Forces.The current president is Pranab Mukherjee.

Election of the President The President of India is elected by an

electoral college consisting of: elected members of the two Houses of

Parliament and Legislative Assemblies of the States - Article 54

It includes the national capital territory of Delhi and the Union territory of Pondicherry

The President’s election is held in accordance with a system of proportional representation by means of a single transferable vote

there shall be uniformity in the scale of representation of the different states at the election of the President - Article 55

Barrack Obama(US President)

Duties The primary duty of the President is to preserve, protect and

defend the constitution and the law of India as made part of his oath (Article 60 of Indian constitution).

 He is liable for impeachment for violation of the constitution (Article 61). President is the common head of all independent constitutional entities.

All his actions, recommendations (Article 3, Article 111, etc.) and supervisory powers (Article 78 c, Article 108, Article 111, etc.) on the executive and legislative entities of India shall be in accordance to uphold the constitution.[ There is no bar on the actions of the President to contest in the court of law.

Military powers The President is the Commander-in-Chief of the Defence

forces of India. The President can declare war or conclude peace,  subject to the approval of the parliament and the advice of the Prime Minister ,Council of the Chiefs of Staffs of the Armed Forces, Military Secretary and President's Officer (Deputy Military Secretary). All important treaties and contracts are made in the President's name. He also appoints the chiefs of the service branches of the armed forces.

The Prime Minister of India, as addressed to in the Constitution of India, is the chief of government, chief adviser to the President of India, head of the Council of Ministers and theleader of the majority party in the parliament. The prime minister leads the executive branch of the Government of India. The PM is directly elected by citizens.

Eligibility  A prime minister must: be a citizen of India. be a member of the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha. If

the person chosen as the prime minister is neither a member of the Lok Sabha nor the Rajya Sabha at the time of selection, he or she must become a member of either of the houses within six months.

be above 25 years of age if he or she is a member of Lok Sabha or above 30 years of age if he is a member of the Rajya Sabha.

not hold any office of profit under the Government of India or the Government of any State or under any local or other authority subject to the control of any of the said Governments.

If however a candidate is elected as the prime minister he/she must vacate their post from any private or government company/ sector and may take up the post only on completion of his /her term

2.Prime Minister

Narendra Modi(current PM of India)

David Cameron(current PM of UK)

Powers and Functions

The prime minister leads the functioning and exercise of authority of the Government of India. He is invited by the President of India in the Parliament of India as leader of the majority party to form a government at the federal level (known as Central orUnion Government in India) and exercise its powers. In practice the prime minister nominates the members of their Council of Ministers to the president. They also work upon to decide a core group of Ministers (known as the Cabinet) as in-charge of the important functions and ministries of the Government of India. The prime minister is responsible for aiding and advising the president in distribution of

work of the Government to various ministries and offices and in terms of the Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules, 1961. The co-ordinating work is generally allocated to the Cabinet Secretariat While generally the work of the Government is divided into various Ministries, the prime minister may retain certain portfolios if they are not allocated to any member of the cabinet.

The prime minister, in consultation with the Cabinet, schedules and attends the sessions of the Houses of Parliament and is required to answer the question from the Members of Parliament to them as the in-charge of the portfolios in the capacity as Prime Minister of India.

Some specific ministries/department are not allocated to anyone in the cabinet but the prime minister himself. The prime minister is usually always in-charge/head of:

Appointments Committee of the Cabinet; Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions; Ministry of Planning; Department of Atomic Energy; and Department of Space. The prime minister represents the country in various delegations, high level meetings

and international organisations that require the attendance of the highest government office and also addresses to the nation on various issues of national or other importance.

The Indian Parliament is the supreme legislative body in India. Parliament is composed of:

The President of India Lok Sabha (House of the People) Rajya Sabha (Council of States).Election of Parliament. The MPs of Lok Sabha are directly elected by the Indian public and the MPs of Rajya Sabha are elected by the members of the State Legislative Assemblies, in accordance with proportional representation. The Parliament is composed of 790 MPs, who serve the largest democratic electorate in the world; 814.5 million Indians registered to vote in the 2014 general elections.

3.Parliament

Mohammad Hamid Ansari (chairman of Rajya Sabha and Vice-President of India)

Sumitra Mahajan (Speaker of Lok Sabha)

Powers and functons The Constitution of India enumerates the powers and functions of

the Indian Parliament in Chapter II of Part V of the constitution. Like the British counterpart, the Parliament of India is not a fully sovereign legislature. It does not enjoy unlimited and absolute powers like that of the British Parliament. It is a creation of the Constitution. It has no natural growth like that of the British Parliament. As it is created by the Constitution, it is bound by the provisions of the Constitution.

Amending Power: The Parliament is competent to amend the Constitution. Both the

Houses have equal powers so far amendment of the Constitution is concerned. A bill to amend the Constitution may originate either in the Rajya Sabha or in the Lok Sabha. Unless it is passed by both the Houses with the required majority, the amendment cannot be effective.

Electoral Function The Parliament participates in the election of the President and

the Vice-President. It also elects some of its members to various Committees of the Parliament. The Vice- President is elected by both the Houses of the Parliament. He is removable by a resolution of the Rajya Sabha agreed to by the Lok Sabha.

Supreme Court of India The Supreme Court of India comprises the Chief Justice and 30

other Judges appointed by the President of India, as the sanctioned full strength. Supreme Court Judges retire upon attaining the age of 65 years. In order to be appointed as a Judge of the Supreme Court, a person must be a citizen of India and must have been, for at least five years, a Judge of a high court or of two or more such Courts in succession, or an advocate of a high court or of two or more such Courts in succession for at least 10 years or he must be, in the opinion of the president, a distinguished jurist. Provisions exist for the appointment of a Judge of a high court as an ad hoc judge of the Supreme Court and for retired judges of the Supreme Court or High Courts to sit and act as Judges of that Court.

The Constitution seeks to ensure the independence of Supreme Court Judges in various ways. A judge of the Supreme Court cannot be removed from office except by an order of the president passed after an address in each House of Parliament supported by a majority of the total membership of that House and by a majority of not less than two-thirds of members present and voting, and presented to the president in the same Session for such removal on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity.

High Court There are 24 High Courts at the State level. Article 141 of the

Constitution of India mandates that they are bound by the judgments and orders of the Supreme Court of India by precedence. The High Courts are the principal civil courts of original jurisdiction in the state along with District Courts which are subordinate to the High courts.

Supreme court of India

 H. L. Dattu(chief justice of Indis)

4.Judiciary

However, High courts exercise their original civil and criminal jurisdiction only if the courts subordinate to the high court in the state are not competent (not authorised by law) to try such matters for lack of pecuniary, territorial jurisdiction. High courts may also enjoy original jurisdiction in certain matters if so designated specifically in a state or Federal law.

District courts The district court is presided over by one District Judge appointed by the state Government.

In addition to the district judge there may be number of Additional District Judges and Assistant District Judges depending on the workload. The Additional District Judge and the court presided have equivalent jurisdiction as the District Judge and his district court.The district judge is also called "Metropolitan session judge" when he is presiding over a district court in a city which is designated "Metropolitan area" by the state Government. The district court has appellate jurisdiction over all subordinate courts situated in the district on both civil and criminal matters. Subordinate courts, on the civil side (in ascending order) are, Junior Civil Judge Court, Principal Junior Civil Judge Court, Senior Civil Judge Court (also called sub-court). Subordinate courts, on the criminal side (in ascending order) are, Second Class Judicial Magistrate Court, First Class Judicial Magistrate Court, Chief Judicial Magistrate Court.

Village courts Village courts, called Lok Adalat (people's court) or Nyaya Panchayat (justice of the

villages), compose a system of alternative dispute resolution. They were recognized through the 1888 Madras Village Court Act, then developed

(after 1935) in various provinces and (after 1947) Indian states. The model from the Gujarat State (with a judge and two assessors) was used from the 1970s onwards. In 1984 the Law Commission recommended to create Nyaya Panchayats in rural areas with laymen ("having educational attainments"). The 2008 Gram Nyayalayas Act have foreseen 5,000 mobile courts in the country for judging petty civil (property cases) and criminal (up to 2 years of prison) cases. However, the Act has not been enforced properly, with only 151 functional Gram Nyayalayas in the country (as of May 2012) against a target of 5000 such courts.[9] The major reasons behind the non-enforcement includes financial constraints, reluctance of lawyers, police and other government officials

The Civil Services of India refer to the civil service and the permanent bureaucracy of the Government of India. The civil service system is the backbone of the administrative machinery of the country. In the parliamentary democracy of India, the ultimate responsibility

for running the administration rests with the elected representatives of the people which are the ministers. 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 executive decisions are implemented by the Indian civil servants. The members of civil service serve at the pleasure of thePresident of India and Article 311 of the constitution protects them from politically motivated or vindictive action. Civil servants are employees of the Government of India; however, not all employees of the Government are civil servants. Civil servants in a personal capacity are paid from the Civil List. Senior civil servants may be called to account by Parliament.

As of year 2010, there are total 6.4 million government employees in India, and less than 50,000 civil servants to administer them.  The civil service system in India is rank-based and does not follow the tenets of the position-based civil services.

5.Civil Service

Powers and functions The responsibility of the civil services is to run the administration of India. The country is managed through a number of Central Government agencies in accordance with the policy directions given by the ministries. The members of the civil services represent as administrators in the central government and state government; emissaries in the foreign missions/embassies; as

tax collectors and revenue commissioners; as civil service commissioned police officers; as permanent respresentative(s) and employees in the United Nations and its agencies and as Chairman, Managing Director, full-time functional Director/Member of the Board of Management of various Public Sector Undertakings/ Enterprises, Corporations, Banks and financial institutions. Civil servants are employed to various agencies of India and can also be appointed as advisors or special duty officers or private secretaries to ministers of the Union and the State Government.

All appointments in the rank of Joint Secretary to Government of India and above, other major appointments, empanelment and extension of tenure is done by theAppointments Committee of the Cabinet. However, all appointments in the rank below Joint Secretary in the federal government is done by the Civil Services Board.

Ajit Seth (head of civil service)

Public-Interest Litigation is litigation for the protection of the public interest. In Indian law, Article 32 of the Indian constitution contains a tool which directly joins the public with judiciary. A PIL may be introduced in a court of law by the court itself (suo motu), rather than the aggrieved party or another third party. For the exercise of the court's jurisdiction, it is not necessary for the victim of the violation of his or her rights to personally approach the court. In a PIL, the right to file suit is given to a member of the public by the courts through judicial activism. The member of the public may be a non-governmental organization (NGO), an institution or an individual. The Supreme Court of India, rejecting the criticism of judicial activism, has stated that the judiciary has stepped in to give direction because due to executive inaction, the laws enacted by Parliament and the state legislatures for the poor since independence have not been properly implemented.Subodh Markandeya well known Senior Advocate of Supreme court of India and Judicial activist believes that public interest litigation is the principal legal remedy For a common man and it is main weapon of judicial activist .

6.Public Interest Litigation

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