Prime Minister Narendra Modi by no means stops shocking the nation with optics. On June 7, 2024, on the Bharatiya Janata Get together-led Nationwide Democratic Alliance assembly of newly elected Members of Parliament, Mr. Modi, upon his arrival, paid his respects to the Structure of India by touching the e book to his brow. Apparently, the setting of the assembly was the Samvidhan Sadan of the newly constructed Parliament.

However does Mr. Modi respect the Structure of India in letter and spirit? His actions as far as the Prime Minister since 2014, or for that matter because the Chief Minister of Gujarat, present in any other case.

In a parliamentary democracy, the Prime Minister is barely the top of the Council of Ministers. Article 74 of the Structure mandates: “There shall be a Council of Ministers with the Prime Minister on the head to assist and advise the President who shall, within the train of his capabilities, act in accordance with such recommendation.”

Highlights from PM Modi’s swearing-in ceremony on June 09, 2024

Pitching for ‘duty’

B.R. Ambedkar and his fellow framers properly selected the parliamentary system over the presidential system as a result of “ it from the standpoint of duty, a non-Parliamentary Govt being unbiased of Parliament tends to be much less accountable to the Legislature, whereas a Parliamentary Govt being extra dependent upon a majority in Parliament develop into extra accountable.” It was hoped that the evaluation of duty of the manager is each day by day and periodic; the day by day evaluation is completed by Members of Parliament within the type of questions, resolutions, no-confidence motions, adjournment motions and debates on addresses. Periodic evaluation is completed by the citizens each 5 years. Thus, the framers most well-liked “extra duty to extra stability”.

On June 9, 2024, the Prime Minister and the Cupboard Ministers have been administered the oath of workplace and secrecy by the President of India. However it was solely after the primary cupboard assembly on the night of June 10 that the portfolios of Ministers have been introduced. But, on the identical day, the Prime Minister cleared the file that sanctioned the discharge of the seventeenth instalment of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi, the farmers’ welfare scheme, for ₹20,000 crore. May the Prime Minister in any respect have achieved so? And was it inside his purview underneath the Guidelines of Enterprise? Such a scheme will likely be underneath the Ministry of Agriculture with its working regulated by the Ministry of Finance, Division of Expenditure.

So, why would the Prime Minister take pre-emptive and maybe unauthorised motion? It’s optics.

The primary cupboard, which met with out the allocation of portfolios, additionally took the choice “to offer help to a few crore extra rural and concrete households for the Building of homes underneath the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana”. May this in any respect have been achieved by a cupboard sans portfolios? Which was the Ministry that had initiated the proposal? Was the agenda circulated? Had been Ministers conscious of the small print? Why this hurry? Optics.

But once more, with out reconstituting the Cupboard Committee after the formation of the brand new authorities, the Prime Minister prolonged the tenures of the Nationwide Safety Adviser Ajit Doval, and P.Ok. Mishra because the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister. This was achieved underneath the garb of the outdated “Appointments Committee of the Cupboard”, which, by the way, includes the Prime Minister and the Residence Minister.

On constitutional morality

So, what occurs to coalition dharma?

These occasions present a whole disregard for the Structure by the Prime Minister. Regrettably, not one Minister or bureaucrat who’s certain by constitutional particulars and controls raised any objections. Why?

B.R. Ambedkar was conscious of those issues. On November 4, 1948, earlier than the Constituent Meeting, he mentioned that “Constitutional morality shouldn’t be a pure sentiment. It needs to be cultivated. We should understand that our folks have but to study it. Democracy in India is barely a top-dressing on an Indian soil, which is basically undemocratic.”

So how did this Nice Son of India predict right now’s Modi? As a result of, to him, constitutional morality meant “a paramount reverence for the types of the Structure” and people types of the Structure have to be sacred within the eyes of each those that are in energy and his opponents. To make sure this, the framers supplied administrative particulars within the Structure of India.

Article 77, thereupon, supplies that “The President shall make guidelines for the extra handy transaction of the enterprise of the Authorities of India, and for the allocation amongst Ministers of the mentioned enterprise”.

In latest occasions, the functioning of the Authorities of India reveals a whole negation of the cupboard system and collective duty to the President and Parliament. There’s a rare amassing of energy within the Prime Minister’s Workplace (PMO) which is destroying the constitutional foundation of “extra duty”.

Pertinently, the Authorities of India (Allocation of Enterprise) Guidelines, as they stand right now, allocate solely enterprise to the PMO — “To offer Secretarial Help to the PM”. Quite the opposite, they supply that “The enterprise of the Authorities of India shall be transacted within the Ministries, Departments, Secretariats and Workplaces specified within the First Schedule to those Guidelines”. Additionally, the distribution of topics is supplied within the Second Schedule. Even the Cupboard Secretariat is barely to offer “Secretarial help to the Cupboard and Cupboard Committees” and implement the “Guidelines of Enterprise”.

So, why is there a whole breakdown of the constitutional framework and ethos? Bhakti.

The appearance of constitutional dictatorship

B.R. Ambedkar did warn that Bhakti in life is sweet for the salvation of the soul. However in politics, it’s the positive path to dictatorship. What we’re witnessing is constitutional dictatorship, one thing that the framers have been strongly in opposition to.

Manipur has been burning for over a yr. But the Prime Minister has not discovered the time to go to the State a lot much less resolve the existential menace to the State. Had there been an Opposition authorities in energy in Manipur, President’s Rule would have been foisted on the State underneath Article 356 lengthy again. Does the Prime Minister present any urgency to unravel severe challenges similar to poverty, ever rising unemployment, inflation (precise) and even resolving the Kashmir scenario? No. Why? These are thorny points and don’t present on the spot optics.

The Prime Minister’s marketing campaign within the just lately concluded common election resides proof of a whole disregard for constitutional morality. Whereas on the marketing campaign path, he repeatedly attacked the biggest minority group within the nation, forgetting that secularism runs by means of the inspiration of the Structure. He belittled the Opposition in each speech forgetting that underneath our democracy, the Opposition has a spot of honour. But, not one establishment or its guardian stood as much as remind him, a lot much less cease him. The Prime Minister, as election legal guidelines stand right now, is liable to be disqualified from Parliament. However who has braveness in a nation the place there may be concern stalking in each nook and nook? A lot for democracy.

So, will the federal government’s coalition companions and the newly rejuvenated Opposition remind the Prime Minister of the necessity to adhere to constitutional morality? Thus far, they’ve failed us: the folks, for whom the Structure created the federal government of the folks, by the folks and for the folks.

Allow us to wait in hope.

Dushyant Dave is a Senior Advocate and a former President of the Supreme Courtroom Bar Affiliation