What is Intermediate Legislative Power?

• Main Author: DAM, Shubhankar
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2012
• Subjects: Asian Studies; Legislation; President/Executive Department
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sol_research/1248
• Institution: Singapore Management University

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And they are transient: ordinances cease to operate on the expiry of six weeks from the reassembly of Parliament unless withdrawn earlier or formally enacted into law.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, are typical cases of executive legislation. Authored by the Council of Ministers to the exclusion of Parliament and discretionarily promulgated into effect by the President, they are products of a parallel—and exceptional—power to legislate.