T
wisted logic dominates Indian politics. The worst sufferer is our Constitution. The greatest damage done is to the office of the President. Constitutional amendments have distorted beyond recognition his role as conceived in the original Constitution. This subject came alive after President Kalam returned to Parliament the bill to amend the Office of Profit Act without signing it. Union law minister H.R. Bharadwaj hinted that Parliament could return it without change to force the President’s hand. In that event, the President could either face humiliation or resign. That explains recent newspaper articles recalling the President’s limitations. One was written by former Janata government law minister Shanti Bhushan. He piloted the Constitution’s 44th Amendment Act in 1978. This Act further depleted the President’s power after Indira Gandhi, as PM, had amended the Constitution to curb it earlier.
A popular justification for the 44th Amendment was that the Emergency experience necessitated steps to prevent dictatorship. Parliament accomplished this by diminishing the President’s powers. But the Emergency dictatorship occurred actually because of a prime minister’s venality and the president’s failure to exercise his powers! Could reasoning be more twisted?
In fact, it could. The provocation for the 44th Amendment was Acting President B.D. Jatti’s refusal to impose President’s rule and dissolve nine state assemblies as the electorate had voted another party to govern the Centre. Shanti Bhushan, as law minister, was convinced that "the government could not be carried on in accordance with the Constitution". Yet today, the Congress is trounced in state after state. Its own allies at the Centre oppose and defeat it in state assembly polls. Does Shanti Bhushan believe that by the same logic the central government cannot be carried on in accordance with the Constitution? If he does, he should speak up.
In 1954, President Rajendra Prasad and PM Nehru clashed over the issue of the President’s powers. Going by the written Constitution, President Prasad held that the Council of Ministers could merely aid and advise the President, who was not bound by its advice. But Attorney General Setalvad said that though not expressly stated in the Constitution, the advice of the council of ministers was binding because our Constitution was based on the British parliamentary system. Was that just his arbitrary opinion? Nowhere does our written Constitution say this.
Today, our system lies in tatters. Without reclaiming and correctly interpreting the original Constitution, India will never get stable governance.