Laxmikanth Ch 12: Parliamentary System (CAPF Digest)

The idea in one line

India adopted the Westminster (parliamentary) model, in which the executive is drawn from and responsible to the legislature, with a nominal head of State (the President) and a real head of government (the Prime Minister).

The key features

• Nominal and real executives: the President is the nominal (de jure) head; the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers form the real (de facto) executive.
• Majority party rule: the party or coalition with a majority in the Lok Sabha forms the government.
• Collective responsibility: the Council of Ministers is collectively responsible to the Lok Sabha (Article 75). If the Lok Sabha passes a no-confidence motion, the entire council must resign.
• Individual responsibility: ministers hold office during the pleasure of the President, who acts on the Prime Minister's advice (Article 75).
• Political homogeneity: ministers usually belong to the same party and share an ideology.
• Double membership: a minister must be (or become within six months) a member of one of the two Houses of Parliament.
• Leadership of the Prime Minister: the Prime Minister leads the council, Parliament and the ruling party.
• Dissolution of the lower House: the Lok Sabha can be dissolved by the President on the Prime Minister's advice, allowing fresh elections.
• Secrecy of procedure: ministers take an oath of secrecy before assuming office.

Constitutional anchoring

• Articles 74 and 75 deal with the Council of Ministers at the Centre.
• Article 74: there shall be a Council of Ministers headed by the Prime Minister to aid and advise the President, who shall act in accordance with that advice. The 42nd Amendment made the advice binding and the 44th Amendment allowed the President to ask for one reconsideration.
• Articles 163 and 164 mirror this at the State level (the Council of Ministers and the Chief Minister).

Parliamentary versus presidential government

• Parliamentary: executive part of and responsible to the legislature; dual executive (nominal and real); the cabinet can be dismissed by the legislature; emphasis on responsibility.
• Presidential (as in the United States): a single executive (the President is both head of State and head of government); separation of powers; fixed tenure; emphasis on stability and on a clear separation.

Why India chose the parliamentary model

The framers preferred responsibility over stability, given India's diversity and the familiarity of the system from the colonial period, and to avoid the personality-centred concentration of power that a presidential system can produce.

CAPF angle: the most-asked distinctions are nominal versus real executive, collective responsibility to the Lok Sabha (Article 75), and the difference between the parliamentary and presidential systems. The Article 74 to 75 and 163 to 164 mirroring (Centre and State) is a clean static fact. There is no direct security overlay here, but the principle of an executive answerable to an elected legislature is the democratic-accountability frame within which the deployment of central forces is authorised and reviewed.