President’s ordinance making power and parliamentary democracy in India: A study of executive overreach since 2014
- Madhya Pradesh Journal of Social Sciences
- 29(2), Dec, 2024: p.109-123
Indian Parliament is known as the epicentre of constitutional democratic order in the country. The Indian Parliament has been criticised because of the conflict between the legislature and executive raising questions on the very notion of checks and balances in the Indian Constitution. In India, the legislature, executive and judiciary are interconnected which sometimes leads to overreach by one organ over the powers of other organs. Since the foundation of parliamentary democracy in India, there have been various cases of executive overreach in the functions of the legislature. 'The President’s ordinance-making power' is a powerful tool in the hand of the executive that was assigned to deal with circumstances that require immediate action when the legislature is not in a situation to take action. Over time, it has been seen that the power is used by the executive to bypass the legislative procedures and processes. This research paper analyses the abuse of ordinance-making power by various governments with its main focus on the issue of executive overreach since 2014. The BJPled government, from time to time, is blamed for heavily misusing the ordinance-making power and for neglecting legislative processes. The paper also analyses the multi-dimensional impact of the misuse of the ordinancemaking power on the democratic structure in India. This research paper is a.-Reproduced