Transgressions By Elected Representatives

At a felicitation function for Dr Karan Singh about six months ago, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankar raised the issue of exercise of executive authority by legislature, which is seldom discussed or debated. He said, “exercise of executive authority by either judiciary or legislature is not in consonance with democracy, as also constitutional prescriptions”.

The import of VP's remarks has largely gone unnoticed but nonetheless represent an unaddressed issue which has been festering since Independence, albeit covertly, but which off late has started raising its head with blatant disregard to the constitutional scheme for separation of power between the executive and the legislature. Transgression by the legislature into the domain of the executive has become so rampant that people across the country increasingly consider their elected representatives as the CEOs of their constituencies. The problem is not party centric.