The Hindu : Opinion / Editorials : Stretching the limits

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Friday, Aug 18, 2006

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Stretching the limits

In delaying assent to the Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Amendment Bill that seeks to exempt certain offices of profit from disqualification even after Parliament has passed it for the second time, President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam seems to be stretching the limits of presidential powers in a way that will disturb the delicate balance among the key constitutional bodies. When he returned the bill for reconsideration to Parliament along with a message detailing what he thought was wrong with it constitutionally and morally, it was clearly a case of presidential overreach, as this newspaper had occasion to comment two months ago. Indeed, it brings to mind two instances of stand-off between the President and the political executive over legislation, neither of which is particularly edifying. The first was in the early 1950s when President Rajendra Prasad — seeking to push his literal reading of the Constitution to assume real power over the government — threatened not to give his assent to the comprehensive Hindu code bill that was being framed. He was soon disabused of this notion of presidential powers by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and the Attorney General, who asserted that the office of President was analogous to that of the King of England who reigns but does not rule. The second instance involved President Zail Singh who, because of his strained relations with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, delayed assent to the post office bill that provided for interception of mail — and it led to the ultimate death of the bill. The President has "the right to be consulted, the right to encourage and the right to warn," as Walter Bagehot put it in the context of the British monarch, but not the power to obstruct or to act as an appellate authority over the actions of the government, much less Parliament.

The Constitution in Article 111 no doubt gives the President the power to send a bill passed by Parliament back for reconsideration, but it is difficult to think of any case where a largely ceremonial President can legitimately challenge the wisdom of a democratically elected legislature. As for the constitutionality of the bill, that would be for the courts to decide, rather than for the President to conclude pre-emptively. If the passage of the bill for the second time in its original form may be seen as an affront to the President, it is an affront invited by his own action. The bill had been a subject of fractious political debate and it was unfortunate that the President's act gave comfort to one side — the Bhartiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance, which opposed the bill at the Centre even while the State governments run by it have pushed through similar bills to prevent disqualification of State legislators. There could be genuine differences of opinion over the merits of the office of profit bill, and clear norms should emerge from the labours of the Joint Parliamentary Committee that is being constituted. What all the political players need to realise is that the damage caused to the institutions of government through presidential intervention would be infinitely greater than any perceived harm that could arise from the bill itself.

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