The President of India
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
Contents |
Elections
The 1969 election
Dhananjay Mahapatra , Jun 26 2017 : The Times of India
In 2017 Congress fielded Meira Kumar as its candidate for the President in an attempt to arrest further widening of cracks in opposition unity .
Thus, Kumar is achieved what her more illustrious father Jagjivan Ram could not despite coming within sniffing distance nearly half a century ago in 1969, when Congress was staring at a split -one faction led by Indira Gandhi and the other `Syndicate' led by S Nijalingappa.
The Supreme Court recorded evidence of nearly a hundred witnesses, which included future president Fak hruddin Ali Ahmed and future PM I K Gujral, while dealing with a serious challenge to V V Giri's election as president. With the blessings of Indira Gandhi, Giri had defeated the official Congress candidate N Sanjeeva Reddy .
Dalit card was not a popular recourse then for reaping a political harvest as it is today . In Shiv Kirpal Singh vs V V Giri [1970 AIR 2097], the SC records in detail how an acrimonious fight erupted between the two factions of Congress over the presidential candidate. It also records how Jagjivan Ram came close to becoming a presidential candidate.
“No consensus being attained at the meeting of Congress Parliamentary Board held on July 12, 1969, the matter was decided by voting. The PM and Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed voted for Jagjivan Ram, while Morarji Desai, Y B Chavan, S K Patil and K Kamraj voted in favour of N Sanjeeva Reddy ,“ the SC had recorded.
Since the majority decided in favour of Reddy , an overruled and `greatly upset' Indira Gandhi played her trump card by dumping Jagjivan Ram in favour of then VicePresident V V Giri. It would not have been possible in today's India, where `pro-Dalit' tag to any decision adds a knockout punch in politics.
The SC had upheld Giri's election as president but came to a sad conclusion after evaluating testimonies of politicians, who decades later held the reins of power. The SC had said, “A number of witnesses have not told the whole truth.As a matter of fact, we were distressed to see truth being sacrificed at the altar of political advantage by these witnesses.“
If by not insisting on Jagjivan Ram as its candidate the Congress missed a chance to elect a Dalit as President in 1969, it made amends nearly three decades later by install ing K R Narayanan as the first Dalit President in 1997.
A year later, Narayanan stalled appointment of judges to the Supreme Court, insisting that Justice K G Balakrishnan be appointed as a judge.He sent back recommendations for appointment of four judges to to the then CJI A S Anand with a noting, “I would like to record my views that while recommending appointment of Supreme Court judges, it would be consonant with constitutional principles and the nation's social objectives if persons belonging to weaker sections of society , like SCs and STs, who comprise 25% of the population, and women are given due consideration.“
CJI Anand was no pushover. He said all eligible candidates, including those from SC and ST communities, were considered while making recommendation for appointment as SC judges. “Our Constitution envisages that merit alone is the criterion for all appointments to the SC and HCs.And we are scrupulously adhering to these provisions. A vacancy may not cause as much harm as a wrongly filled vacancy ,“ he had retorted.
With Narayanan maintaining a rigid stand, Justice Anand had to rush to Rashtrapati Bhavan and convince him that if Justice Balakrishnan was appointed as an SC judge in 1998, he would have a tenure of five and half years as CJI and supersede many others.
Narayanan relented but ultimately succeeded in pushing for Justice Balakrishnan's appointment as an SC judge, which came on June 8, 2000. He became the first Dalit CJI on January 14, 2007 and enjoyed the third longest tenure as CJI, after Y V Chandrachud and S R Das. So what will India prefer -the course adopted by Indira Gandhi or the one by Narayanan? If governments and politicians sincerely strive to provide basic rights, amenities and education to Dalits, they will not need either of the courses to prove their mettle.
Legal powers
President's decisions subject to judicial review: HC
The Times of India, Apr 21 2016
President too can go wrong, says Uttarakhand high court
Vineet Upadhyay
The legitimacy of the President's decision to suspend the Uttarakhand assembly is subject to judicial review as even he can go wrong, the Uttarakhand high court observed.
The court was responding to an argument by additional solicitor general Tushar Mehta, appearing on behalf of the Centre, who contended that the President relies on his political wisdom in many matters. “You cannot have absolutism. President can go wrong,“ the division bench comprising chief justice K M Joseph and Justice V K Bisht commented. The judges went on to remark that the court's order, too, is “always open to judicial review“.
Even as the bench declared at the conclusion of arguments on Wednesday that the hearing would continue the next day , Abhishek Manu Singhvi, counsel for former chief minister Harish Rawat, put forward his apprehensions that the Centre may revoke President's rule and call BJP to form the government in the state. Reacting to this, the court issued a subtle warning, “We still have tomorrow.We hope they will not provoke us.“ By the end of the day , opin ion among legal circles was that the court was likely to reserve its orders on the matter. Meanwhile, hectic parleys that continued throughout the day focused on the events in the assembly on March 18. The HC, citing the governor's report and correspondence, about what had happened in the state ssembly on that day , pointed out that there was “no mention of nine (rebel) MLAs of Congress making the demand of the division of vote on the floor. Instead, as per the material we have, the leader of opposition had made the demand of the division of vote“, the bench noted, adding that “what we have understood is that everything was proceed ing towards a floor test on March 28“. It also said there was “absolute absence of material that would create an apprehension in the mind of the governor“ that central rule needs to be imposed.
Talking about the Union Cabinet note about recommendation of central rule, the bench asked additional solicitor general Tushar Mehta, “Why so much secrecy around this cabinet note?“ Mehta denied any secrecy , adding that the note was only submitted to the court as “confidential material“.
During the arguments, Singhvi raised a question on whether a solitary instance of a speaker denying a division would be sufficient to impose central rule. He also alleged that none of the governor's reports to the President recommended imposing of Article 356 or said there was “failure of constitutional machinery in the state“. Singhvi told the court that BJP filed the complaint against Arya on April 5 after which the speaker had already sought a reply from Arya on April 12. “Centre's argument that he did not take any action is baseless,“ he added.The court said it is “taking a serious note of this“. The Centre will submit its clarification.
Method of election
In Prez poll, MPs not bound by party whip, Mar 20 2017: The Times of India
Who elects the president?
The president is not elected in a direct election by the people, but by an electoral college consisting of the elected members of both houses of Parliament and MLAs of the state legislative assemblies, Delhi and Puducherry . Nominated members do not vote in these elections.
Is the value of every MLA's vote the same?
No. The principle is that the total value of the votes of the Union legislature and state legislatures should be more or less the same. Also, each state must have a value within the total value of votes for all states corresponding to its share in the total population.Hence, a population-based formula is devised to calculate the value of votes. The 84th Constitution Amendment Act, 2001 states that until the relevant figures for the first census after 2026 are published, the population of states for calculating the value of votes in presidential election shall be the figures from the 1971 census. Hence, the value of votes of a particular state is calculated by dividing its 1971 population by the number of elected seats in the state assembly multiplied by thousand (population(no of MLAx1000). For instance the value of a Delhi MLA's vote is 58 which is calculated on the basis of the NCT's 40.7 lakh population in 1971and 70 seats in the legislative assembly . In a similar way , the value of the vote of an UP MLA is 208, the highest in the country , while it is 7 for Sikkim, the lowest.
How is the value of MP votes calculated?
The total value of these state votes is added and then divided by the number of elected members in both Lok Sabha (543) and Rajya Sabha (233) and rounded off to the nearest whole number.
This puts the value of each MP's vote at 708. There are all told 4,896 electors consisting of 776 MPs and 4,120 MLAs. The total value of votes of MPs is 5,49,408, while for the 4,120 MLAs it is 5,49,474 (the numbers are slightly different because of rounding off the decimals). One can see that the Constitution seeks to ensure that the neither the Union nor the states will have an advantage here. This is done because apart from being the ceremonial head of state, the president is responsible for appointing the prime minister. In a situation when no party or coalition gets a clear majority , it is the president who exercises his or her discretion and this can be crucial.
How is the voting done?
Members of the electoral college can vote according to their conscience and are not bound by party whips. The voting is also by secret ballot. The ballot pa per does not have any party symbol. It has two columns, the first containing the name of the candidate and the second where the elector has to write hisher preference.
The number `1' means first preference and so on. In the first round of counting, a candidate has to get more than half of the total first preference votes polled. In a situation in which no candidate gets this, the returning officer excludes the candidate with the lowest first preference votes and distributes his votes among the remaining candidates on the basis of second preference.The process continues until someone reaches the quota.
Who is eligible to contest the presidential election?
Any citizen of India over the age of 35 who is qualified for election as a member of the Lok Sabha can contest presidential elections. Candidates cannot hold any office of profit under the Centre or states.
A candidate's nomination paper must be subscribed by at least 50 electors as proposers and another 50 as seconders. An elector can subscribe to the nomination of only one candidate as proposer or seconder. If heshe has signed the nominations of two candidates, the signature for the first set of papers will be valid while the second becomes inoperative.
