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Constitutional Law

Selected Works

Shubhankar Dam

Presidential Powers

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The Executive, Shubhankar Dam Dec 2015

The Executive, Shubhankar Dam

Shubhankar Dam

India has a parliamentary system. The President is the head of the Union of India; the Prime Minister is the head of government.1 Along with his or her cabinet, the Prime Minister is responsible to the Lower House of Parliament.2 States have similar arrangements. They are formally headed by Governors. But chief ministers and their cabinets lead the governments. Executive power, ordinarily, is exercised by the Prime Minister, chief ministers and their respective councils of ministers. However, in keeping with India’s Westminster inheritance, such power often vests in the formal heads, and is exercised in their names. This chapter offers …


Presidential Legislation In India: The Law And Practice Of Ordinances, Shubhankar Dam Dec 2013

Presidential Legislation In India: The Law And Practice Of Ordinances, Shubhankar Dam

Shubhankar Dam

India has a parliamentary system. Yet the president has authority to occasionally enact legislation (or ordinances) without involving parliament. This book is a study of ordinances at the national level in India, centred around three themes. First, it tells the story of how an artefact of British constitutional history, over time, became part of India’s legislative system. Second, it offers an empirical account of the ways in which presidents have resorted to ordinances in post-independence India. Third, the book analyses a range of ordinance-related questions, including some that are yet to be judicially adjudicated. In the process, the book explains …


What Is Intermediate Legislative Power?, Shubhankar Dam Dec 2012

What Is Intermediate Legislative Power?, Shubhankar Dam

Shubhankar Dam

The President in India’s parliamentary system is authorized to promulgate legislation under Article 123.1 While such legislation, or ‘ordinances’, enjoy the same force and effect as Acts, they are distinct in some ways. First, ordinances lack legislative deliberation: the President promulgates them ‘except when both Houses of Parliament are in session’. Secondly, it depends on the President’s satisfaction that ‘circumstances exist that render it necessary for him to take immediate action’. And they are transient: ordinances cease to operate on the expiry of six weeks from the reassembly of Parliament unless withdrawn earlier or formally enacted into law. Ordinances, then, …