Yesterday marked the death anniversary of President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, whose tenure remains inseparable from one of the most controversial episodes in India’s constitutional history. During the Emergency of 1975, Ahmed assented to ordinances and proclamations with notable speed, prompting political cartoonist Abu Abraham to create the now well-known caricature depicting the President signing the proclamation from his bathtub.

That episode, among others, has since shaped a popular perception of the Indian President as little more than a ceremonial figurehead without meaningful constitutional authority.

However, this understanding is incomplete. The office of the President, as conceived in India’s constitutional design, was neither intended to resemble an American-style executive nor to function as a passive emblem. Its contours were debated, recalibrated and contested from the drafting stage itself. If moments such as 1975 have encouraged a minimalist reading of presidential authority, the constitutional text and early institutional practice suggest a more nuanced and calibrated role.

Prior to the deliberations of the Union Constitution Committee - appointed by the Constituent Assembly to lay down the governing principles of the Constitution - Sir Benegal Narsing Rau, Constitutional Adviser to the Assembly, had prepared a Memorandum on the Union Constitution outlining the proposed structure of the Union, including the appointment and powers of the President. Although the Memorandum endorsed a parliamentary system broadly inspired by Westminster, it significantly recalibrated the position of the President, the constitutional counterpart of the British monarch.

Rau accepted that the President would ordinarily act on ministerial advice. However, he did not confine presidential discretion to conventional areas such as the appointment of the Prime Minister or the dissolution of the House. He contemplated the conferral of “special responsibilities” upon the President, to be exercised in his independent discretion. These included safeguarding the legitimate interests of minorities, addressing grave threats to the peace or tranquillity of the Union and protecting the financial stability and credit of the Union. To assist in the exercise of such independent authority, Rau proposed a Council of State comprising ex officio members - the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Chief Justice of India, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Chairman of the Senate and the Advocate-General - along with additional members nominated by the President. This body was intended to advise the President when acting independently of ministerial counsel.

This design was neither presidential in the American sense nor conventionally Westminster in structure. It charted a middle path: a constitutional head vested with limited but meaningful balancing authority within a parliamentary framework.

Between May and August 1947, the Union Constitution Committee - chaired by Jawaharlal Nehru and comprising Rajendra Prasad, BR Ambedkar, Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar and Syama Prasad Mookerjee - considered Rau’s proposals. By June 8, 1947, the Committee had resolved that the President would not retain the “special responsibilities” contemplated in Rau’s draft; instead, cabinet responsibility would be made paramount. The presence of Prasad on this Committee is noteworthy, for he would later articulate a more expansive understanding of presidential authority, despite having concurred in its curtailment at this stage.

The Committee’s preference for a limited presidential role was subsequently reflected in the draft prepared by the Drafting Committee and defended by Dr Ambedkar in the Constituent Assembly.

On November 4, 1948, Ambedkar remarked in the Assembly:

“Under the Draft Constitution the President occupies the same position as the King under the English Constitution. He is the head of the State but not of the Executive. He represents the Nation but does not rule the Nation.”

He went further on June 8, 1949, observing that the President had “no functions at all either in his discretion or in his individual judgment.” Although this latter statement was made in the context of financial provisions, it has often been invoked as a general description of the presidency.

The departure from Rau’s design was, therefore, deliberate. The framers were determined to entrench cabinet responsibility and avoid even limited dual centres of executive authority. Yet, even within this recalibrated framework, the President was not reduced to a mere figurehead. The constitutional text retained limited but meaningful functions that would shape later debates.

A careful reading of the Constitution reveals that the President’s authority operates across three distinct planes. First, there are functions that are strictly bound by ministerial advice. In these domains, the President acts formally, giving effect to decisions taken by the Council of Ministers.

Second, there exist limited but real areas of constitutional discretion. The appointment of a Prime Minister in a hung parliament is one such example. The decision to return a Bill for reconsideration under Article 111 is another. In these situations, the President must exercise independent judgment within constitutional limits, even though the framework remains parliamentary.

Third, there is a category that may best be described as cooperative authority. Article 78 empowers the President to seek information from the Prime Minister regarding the affairs of the Union. Article 86 authorises the President to address either House and to send messages. These provisions presuppose dialogue. They reflect a constitutional design in which the President may caution, advise and question the Cabinet, without supplanting executive authority.

In contemporary debates concerning the powers of the President and the Governor, it is often this second and third category that is overlooked.

Over the years, Presidents have occasionally sought to test the boundaries of the constitutional design by emphasising textual silences or pressing for a broader understanding of their authority. Notably, this practice began with the first President, Rajendra Prasad. He took the view that the powers of the President were not insignificant and that the office could not be equated entirely with that of the British monarch. In a letter to Sardar Patel, he wrote,

“A reference to the Constitution itself shows that there are at least 121 Articles in it apart from the schedules in which the President is mentioned as having to do something or other...in most of these matters he has to act according to the advice of the Ministers concerned but I believe the Constitution contemplates that it is open to him to advise ministers not on matters of detail but generally on matters of policy.”

Prasad’s assertion of authority arose in part in response to Prime Minister Nehru’s request for prompt assent to bills passed by parliament. When pressed, Prasad is reported to have remarked,

“When I am asked to sign a document, I must satisfy myself and not sign blindly.”

The resulting friction between the two constitutional functionaries surfaced first over the Zamindari Abolition Bill and later over the Hindu Code Bill, towards which Prasad had reservations despite parliamentary approval.

In response, Nehru sought the views of leading constitutional authorities, including Attorney General MC Setalvad and Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar. Both concluded that the President possessed no independent executive authority under the Constitution. Setalvad advised:

“The President under [India’s] Constitution has no prerogatives, personal or otherwise. In this respect his position as compared to that of the British monarch is weaker...The fact that the President, unlike the King, is elected to his office for a term makes no difference to this position.”

On the related question whether the President, as Supreme Commander of the Defence Forces, could independently summon military officers, Setalvad took the view that while such meetings could be requested, they ought to occur in the presence of the concerned Minister.

Setalvad’s opinion reflected a strong commitment to Cabinet responsibility and tended to emphasise the President’s formal role within that framework. However, the advice did not fully engage with those constitutional provisions that contemplate limited situations of independent discretion or structured engagement by the President.

Although this advice settled the immediate controversy, Prasad continued to reflect publicly on the scope of presidential authority. In his address at the inauguration of the Indian Law Institute on December 12, 1957, he invited scholarly examination of the differences between the British monarch and the Indian President, suggesting that the latter’s constitutional position warranted closer study.

While Prasad’s efforts did not alter the settled understanding of Cabinet supremacy, subsequent Presidents have occasionally relied on textual silences in the Constitution to assert more power within the existing constitutional structure. A prominent example is the exercise of so-called “pocket veto” where instead of assenting or returning a bill passed by Parliament, as mandated by Article 111, the President takes no action and keeps the bill pending. President Giani Zail Singh had famously adopted this approach over the Postal Bill, 1986 passed by the Rajiv Gandhi government. The Bill was subsequently withdrawn by the Vajpayee government.

The President of India is often regarded, somewhat simplistically, as a ceremonial figurehead. Yet, the constitutional scheme suggests otherwise. While the President is not an executive rival to the Council of Ministers, the office is vested with calibrated powers that permit caution, counsel and, in limited circumstances, resistance within the framework of cabinet responsibility.

The Constitution does not envisage presidential passivity. It presumes structured cooperation between constitutional authorities - where information may be sought, legislation reconsidered and concerns expressed through defined channels. Whether this design is fully realised in practice is a separate question. But constitutional fidelity requires that we resist both extremes: the portrayal of the President as an omnipotent authority and the equally mistaken assumption that the office is devoid of meaningful agency.

Swapnil Tripathi leads Charkha, the Constitutional Law Centre at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.

Views are personal.