Essay on the President of India – Qualification,Term of Office and Method of Election

Qualifications:

The Constitution provides that any person, who is a citizen of India, has complete the age of 35 years and is eligible for election as a member of Lok Sabha is entitled to contest election of President.

A person, who holds any office under the Government of India or any Government or any local authority subject to the control of these governments, is not eligible for el as a President.

He is not elected directly by the people, but according to Article 54, by the members an Electoral College consisting of (i) the elected members of both the Houses of the Parliament (ii) the elected members of the State Legislative Assemblies (but not of the Legislative Assemblies Union Territories).

Term of Office:

The President’s term of office is five years from the date on which he e upon his office (Article 56). He is entitled for re-election.

The first President of India, Dr. Raje Prasad served the office for two terms. The President may resign from his office by writing under hand to the Vice-President of India. He can be removed from his office for violation of the constitute by the process of impeachment (Article 61).

The procedure for impeachment of the President in I is almost identical to that in the USA. The charge of impeachment may be preferred by either of Parliament (In the USA, the House of Representatives alone has the power to try the impeach subject to at least 14 days’ written notice, signed by not less than two-thirds of the total member of the House.

These charges are to be investigated by the House other than the one framing their after the investigation, a majority, sustains the charges against the President of not less than. Thirds of the total membership of the House, it will have the effect of removing the President from office forthwith.

In the event of the occurrence of any vacancy in the office of the President by reason of his de- resignation or removal or otherwise, the Vice-President (if is not available for the purpose, then

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court) shall act as President until the date (no later than six months from the date of the occurrence of the vacancy) on which a new President elected enters upon his office.

Emoluments and Allowances

The President shall be entitled to a rent-free official residence and shall be also entitled to such emolu­ments, allowances and privileges as may be determined by Parliament by law. His emoluments at present are fixed Rs. 1.5 lakhs per month. The salary and the allowances of the President cannot be reduced during his term of office. He receives a pension after retirement.

Method of Election

The President is elected by the system of proportional representation by means of single transferable vote.

This procedure as determined by the above formula secures uniformity among (i) the States inter se and (ii) maintains parity between the Union and the States as a whole in their influence over the Presidential election. The Principle of uniformity is given effect by giving to each voter (i.e., a member of the Legislative Assembly), a voting strength in proportion to the population he represents.

The second formula secures parity between the votes of all the MLAs and votes of all the MPs. This principle is translated into practice by laying down that the total value of the votes of all the members of the elected members of both Houses of Parliament. The derivative figure is the vote of each elected member of the Parliament.

The problem of nomination of a suitable candidate, for election as President had not come to the forefront till 1969, as the Congress with its monopoly of power in the Union and all the states, was in a position to dictate the choice of the Electoral College. However, the probability in 1969 was that no political party might emerge with a clear majority in the Lok Sabha.

This phenomenon made the Presidential election quite important and crucial, and controversy about the nature of the Presidential office began. There emerged 15 contestants, although the main were only 3, Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy, V.V. Giri and C.D. Deshmukh.

While the election campaign was in full swing, the Congress Party suffered a split within its ranks. One faction was following the lead of its President, S. Nijalingappa, and the other was moving close to Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. The differences between the two continued to widen.

It was a fight between the Syndicate Group of the Congress Party and the Prime Minister. When the Prime Minister asked the Congressmen to ‘vote according to the dictates of their conscience’, V.V. Giri became the choice of the Electoral College, though with the margin of 1.83%, the narrowest ever.

The Prime Minister did so because she, somehow, smelt that an attempt was being made by a few top party leders – Morarji Desai, Kamraj, Nijalingappa and others to oust her from Premiership and that those leaders were planning to utilize the Presidential office for that purpose.

It is important to note that in the first counting of votes, N. Sanjeeva Reddy as the official Congress candidate secured only 37.49% as against 48.01% of V.V. Giri and 13.48% of D.D. Deshmukh. Thus, the second counting of votes became inevitable.

The large chunk of 8,178 second preference votes from the Prime Minister’s home State (Uttar Pradesh) set V.V. Giri on the victory gallop. In this way the Propor­tional Representative System became useful though V.V. Giri did not get 51% votes in the first round preferential count.

It was the first time that the ruling party’s nominee for the President ship was defeated and a non-official candidate was successful with 50.2% votes against 48.5% votes secured by the official candidate.

In 1974 a constitutional question was raised whether the Presidential election could validly be held when the Legislative Assembly of one state or more had been dissolved. In February 1974, the Gujarat Assembly was dissolved which caused a complication.

The Supreme Court expressed the view that the elections could be validly held under the given circumstances and vacancy in the electoral roll does not invalidate the list.

Thirty Ninth Amendment (1975) of the Constitution took away the jurisdiction of the courts in the disputes arising out of or in connection with election of the President and Vice President.

It empowered the Parliament to set up a body by law for resolving such disputes. The validity of any such law could not be questioned in any court. However, Forty Fourth Amendment (1978) of the Constitution has restored this power to the Supreme Court.

In the eleven presidential elections hitherto, the only occasion when a candidate was elected without a contest was in 1977. The honour went to Mr. Neelam Sanjiva Reddy.