Short essay on the Review of Cabinet Committee System

The Committee system though introduced in 1948 has not been effective and the cabinet or the Prime Minister normally did not take the recommendations seriously.

It has to be noted that whenever the Prime Minister is powerful, the committee system lost its significance as in the case of Nehru, Indira and Rajeev Gandhi.

But in case of coalition governments like that of Charan Singh, V.P. Singh, Deve Gowda and Gujral the cabinet committees performed effectively.

The Prime Minister in the above cases gave enough importance to the cabinet committees and the Government accepted most of the recommendations of the committees as a norm.

It must be said that though the cabinet is the highest policy making body it is the Cabinet Committees that have come to exercise real authority and the cabinet merely endorses the decisions taken by these committees.