NDA (II) 2016 General Ability Test · Question 148 of 150

Correct — A, the power of advising the President on the appointment of other Ministers. Article 75(1) states in terms that the Prime Minister shall be appointed by the President and the other Ministers shall be appointed by the President on the advice of the Prime Minister. That is the one power in this list written into the text of the Constitution itself. The other three are genuine and daily-exercised powers of the office, but they flow from the Government of India (Transaction of Business) Rules and the Allocation of Business Rules made by the President under Article 77(3), and from convention — not from any article that names them.

• (b)The power to allocate business amongst the Ministers — Really exercised by the Prime Minister, but through the Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules, which the President makes under Article 77(3) for the more convenient transaction of business. The Constitution authorises the rules; it does not itself confer this power on the Prime Minister.
• (c)The power to summon the meeting of the Cabinet — Nowhere set out in the Constitution. The Cabinet as a body is barely mentioned in the text at all, and the convening of its meetings is governed by the Transaction of Business Rules and long practice, with the Cabinet Secretariat doing the work.
• (d)The power to transfer a Minister from one Department to another — A reshuffle is formally effected by the President on the Prime Minister's advice under the same Allocation of Business Rules. It is a consequence of the appointment power rather than a separate power written into the Constitution.

The Prime Minister's authority comes from three different sources, and this question is asking you to separate them. A small number of powers appear expressly in the Constitution — advising on the appointment of other Ministers under Article 75(1), and the duties towards the President under Article 78, which require the Prime Minister to communicate decisions of the Council of Ministers, to furnish information the President calls for, and to submit for the Council's consideration any matter on which a Minister has decided alone. A second layer comes from rules made under Article 77(3), which cover how business is allocated and transacted. A third layer is pure convention, inherited from the Westminster system.

The distinction the question draws is not academic. It is the reason the office of Prime Minister looks so much more powerful in practice than the Constitution's text suggests: the text is sparse, and most of the machinery sits in subordinate rules and unwritten practice. The same theme runs through the whole area — the word Cabinet, for instance, barely features in the Constitution, which speaks of the Council of Ministers, and the Cabinet Committees that do much of the real work have no constitutional mention at all. When an examiner asks what is 'codified in the Constitution itself', they are testing exactly this boundary.

• Article 75(1) expressly provides that other Ministers are appointed by the President on the advice of the Prime Minister.
• Article 78 sets out the Prime Minister's duties to the President — communicating decisions, furnishing information and referring individual ministerial decisions to the Council.
• Article 77(3) empowers the President to make rules for the more convenient transaction of government business; the Allocation of Business Rules are made under it.
• Portfolios are formally allocated, and reshuffles formally effected, by the President acting on the Prime Minister's advice.
• The Cabinet and its committees are creatures of rules and convention rather than of detailed constitutional provision.

• Assuming that because the Prime Minister clearly exercises a power, the Constitution must say so.
• Confusing what the President formally does with what the Prime Minister effectively decides; the rules route almost everything through the President's name.
• Overlooking Article 78, which is the other genuinely codified set of prime-ministerial obligations and is asked in its own right.

NDA likes the constitutional-text-against-convention distinction, and asks it either in this form or by naming a practice and asking whether it is written into the Constitution — so keep a short list of what the text actually says about the office.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which Article of the Constitution lays down the Prime Minister's duty to communicate to the President all decisions of the Council of Ministers relating to the administration of the affairs of the Union?

  • (a)Article 74
  • (b)Article 75
  • (c)Article 77
  • (d)Article 78

  Answer(d) Article 78 — it also requires the Prime Minister to furnish information the President calls for and to place before the Council any matter decided by a single Minister.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules are made by

  • (a)the Prime Minister under Article 75
  • (b)the President under Article 77
  • (c)the Cabinet Secretary under Article 78
  • (d)Parliament by ordinary legislation

  Answer(b) the President under Article 77 — the President may make rules for the more convenient transaction of the business of the Government of India and its allocation among Ministers.