Parliamentary System

The two most popular forms of government of parliamentary and presidential. India has adopted for the parliamentary form of government, Booth actor centre and in the states. articles 74 in 75 deal with the parliamentary system at the center and Article 163 and 164 in the states. 

Features of parliamentary government 

Nominal and Real executive: 

• President is the nominal executive (de jure executive or titular executive), Head of the state 
• Prime Minister is the real executive (de facto executive), head of the Government. 
• Council of Ministers headed by Prime Minister to aid and advise the president and such advice is binding on the president (article 74). 

Majority party rule 

• The political party which secures majority seats in the Lok Sabha form the government. 
• The leader of party is elected as the Prime Minister by the president. 
• other ministers appointed on the advice of Prime Minister by the president. 
• When no party gets majority then coalition of parties is invited by the president. 

Responsibility of the executive to the legislature 

• the parliament holds the executive accountable through parliamentary questions, budgetary approvals, parliamentary committees etc. 
• principal of responsibility of the executive legislature also entails that if the legislature shows disapproval of its confidence in the Council of Ministers (vote of no confidence), then the executive has to resign. 

Political homogeneity 

• Council of Ministers belong to the same political party and hence, share same political ideology.  

 Double membership 

• The ministers are members of both the legislature and executive. this means that a person cannot be a minister without being a member of the parliament. 

Leadership of the Prime Minister 

• Prime Minister is the leader of Council of Ministers leader of parliament and leader of the party in power. he plays a role of leadership in the system of government. 
• he has a significant and highly crucial role in the functioning of the government. 

Dissolution of the lower house 

• the Lok Sabha is the lower House of the parliament and can be dissolved by the parliament on recommendation of the Prime Minister. 
• Prime Minister can advise the president to dissolve the Lok Sabha before the expiry of its term and hold fresh elections. 
• this means that the executive enjoys the right to get the legislature dissolved in a parliamentary system. 

Secrecy of procedure 

• the secrecy of cabinet proceedings is another prerequisite of the parliamentary form of government. 
• ministry should not divulge in public or anywhere else whatever is discussed in the cabinet. 
• any violation of this is considered to be a serious violation of discipline and the cabinet minister may lose his seat. 

Merits of parliamentary system 

• Harmony between the legislature and executive. Executive is a part of the legislative and both are interdependent at work. hence there is less scope for disputes and conflicts between the 2 organs. 
• responsible government. the ministers are responsible to the parliament for all their acts of omission and Commission. the parliament exercises control over the ministers through various devices like question hour, discussions, adjournment motion, no confidence motion etc 
• it prevents despotism as the executive authority is vested in a group of individuals that is Council of Ministers and not in a single person. this check the dictatorial tendencies of the executive. Also the executive is responsible to the parliament and kinda removed by a no confidence motion. 
• Reddy alternative government. in case of ruling party loses its majority, the head of the state can invite the opposition particle form the government without fresh elections. 
• Wide representation. the executive consists of a group of individuals that is members who are representatives of the people in a parliamentary system. hence it is possible to provide representation to all sections in regions in the government. 

Demerits of the parliamentary system 

• No full separation of powers. firstly it violates the theory of separation of powers. this occasionally and dangers the liberty of the people. All power is concentrated in the parliament. it is said to be sovereign. in practice all powers get concentrated in the hands of the Prime Minister. as he is the leader of the majority party distributes officers and ministers don’t go against his wishes. 
• Unstable government. there is no guarantee that the government can survive its tenure. no confidence motion or political defection on evils of multi party coalition can make the government unstable. the government headed by morarji Desai, charan Singh, VP Singh, chandrashekhar, deve gowda and IK gujral are some examples. 
• no continuity of policies. due to uncertainty of the tenure of the government. a change in the ruling party is usually followed by changes in the policies of the government. 
• dictatorship of the cabinet. when the ruling party enjoys absolute majority in the parliament the cabinet becomes autocratic and exercises nearly unlimited powers. example era of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. 
• government by amateurs. parliamentary system is not conducive to administrative efficiency as the ministers are not experts in their fields. Prime Minister has limited choice and is restricted to the members of parliament alone and does not extend to external talent. 

Presidential government 

The presidential form of government is one where the executive is constitutionally independent of the legislature in respect to the duration of his tenure and is not responsible For his political policies. It is based on separation of powers. the president is directly elected by the people. the president is the actual head of both the state and the government. 

Features of presidential form of government 

• president at the real executive: There is no nominal or ceremonial executive. all the executive powers are vested in the hands of the president. the president is free to choose his ministers or secretaries from anywhere. the ministers don’t have constitutional status. they assist the president to the extent he needs. 
• separation of powers: powers of the 3 organs – legislature, executive and judiciary, are separated invested in different persons. the executive and the legislature are independent of each other. 
• non responsible executive: the president and his ministers are not members of legislature and are not responsible to legislature. the legislature cannot question the president and his ministers. 
• fixed tenure of the president: the tenure of the president cannot be lessened or increased under any circumstances. the president can be removed by the legislature only by process of impeachment and the legislature too cannot be dissolved before the expiry of its fixed tenure. 

Why did the constituent assembly clicker parliamentary democracy to the US presidential model? 

The constituent assembly of India preferred parliamentary democracy because India has some experience of operating the parliamentary system of democracy under British rule. after this experience, there was no need to go back up on the tradition that had been built over 100 years and buy a novel experience. 

Apart from experience, the question of suitability in the context of the specificity of Indian society also made in their mind. they believed that in the world’s most complex plural society, as we have in India, parliamentary government offers greater scope for giving representation to various interests and regions. 

Over and above the founding fathers ‘ after a long struggle for responsible government against arbitrary executive authority under British Raj were naturally allergic to affixed turn irremovable executive’. in fact, they preferred a more responsible executive of the parliamentary system to a more stable executive of U.S. presidential model. hence the draft constitution in recommending the parliamentary system of the executive head preferred more responsibility to more stability.