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The absence of term limits for the Prime Minister, combined with weakened parliamentary accountability, creates a structural imbalance in India’s constitutional framework. Critically examine. 15 Marks (GS-2, Polity)
Introduction
- Recently a historic milestone was reached — the record for the longest cumulative tenure as the head of an elected government was surpassed, spanning 8,931 days across State and Union levels.
- This has reignited a critical constitutional debate, while the ceremonial President is informally limited to two terms, the all-powerful Prime Minister faces no such restriction.
- This asymmetry raises urgent questions about democratic accountability, institutional health and the long-term vitality of the Indian Republic.
Core Imbalance: President vs Prime Minister
The Indian Constitution reflects a notable imbalance between its two highest executive offices. The President, a largely ceremonial figurehead under Articles 52 to 62, is guided not only by constitutional provisions but also by an informal yet widely respected two-term convention.
- In contrast, the Prime Minister whose office derives authority primarily from Articles 74 and 75, which provide for a Council of Ministers headed by the Prime Minister to aid and advise the President exercises the real executive power.
- Notably, while the President’s tenure is formally limited to five years (with eligibility for re-election), no explicit constitutional limit is imposed on the tenure of the Prime Minister.
- As a result, the Prime Minister can continue in office indefinitely, so long as a parliamentary majority is maintained in the Lok Sabha, thereby reinforcing the asymmetry embedded within the constitutional framework.
A. The Presidential Convention
- Governed by the Ivor Jennings Test: The convention against a third Presidential term satisfies three conditions — a precedent must exist, actors must feel obliged to follow it, and a clear constitutional reason must underpin it. All three are met in India’s Presidential practice.
- Strong Moral Force without a Legal Bar: Article 57 allows unlimited Presidential re-election, yet no President since 1950 has attempted a third term. Constitutional morality has functioned as a de facto term limit.
- Historical Record: Only one President, Dr. Rajendra Prasad (1950–1962) have served two full terms. Since then, no individual has crossed this informal boundary.
B. The Prime Ministerial Reality
- Unlimited Tenure by Design: Articles 74 and 75 establish the Prime Minister’s office but place no ceiling on terms served. The only condition is majority support in the Lok Sabha.
- The Power Paradox: The office with greater power — commanding the Cabinet, controlling appointments, and directing policy — has the fewer constraints. This is not an accident of drafting; it was a deliberate constitutional choice.
KEY FACT: India has had 15 Prime Ministers since 1947. The longest serving have crossed two full Lok Sabha terms, yet not once has the Constitution been invoked to question this. This silence is the gap at the heart of this debate.
What the Framers of Indian Constitution Intended And Why It No Longer Holds
The decision to exclude term limits was deliberate. During the Constituent Assembly debates (1946–1949), the framers argued that the Prime Minister already faces a far more rigorous check than a periodic term limit through daily parliamentary accountability. Over decades, this logic has been structurally weakened.
A. The Foundational Argument: Daily vs. Periodic Accountability
- The Westminster Model as Blueprint: India modelled its parliamentary system on the British tradition, where a Prime Minister remains in power only so long as the legislature’s confidence is maintained. In theory, this provides a ‘daily check’ on executive power.
- Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s Distinction: During the Constituent Assembly debates, it was argued that the Prime Minister faces not just periodic assessment through elections, but also continuous assessment through parliamentary tools, a far more rigorous check than a simple term limit.
- The Three Accountability Instruments: The framers envisioned three primary tools to discipline the executive: (a) Questions and Supplementary Questions in Parliament, (b) Adjournment Motions and Calling Attention Notices, and (c) Votes of No-Confidence in the Lok Sabha.
B. Why This Logic Has Been Weakened Over Time
The framers’ optimism rested on certain assumptions about how parliamentary democracy would function. Over the decades, structural changes have eroded these very foundations.
- Dominance of the Executive over the Legislature: In practice, the Prime Minister and Cabinet who are drawn from the legislature often control it, rather than being held accountable by it. Parliamentary sessions are increasingly shorter, with less time for meaningful scrutiny.
- Weakening of Coalition Accountability: Ironically, even coalition governments, which once forced negotiation and compromise, have given way to single-party dominance that reduces legislative bargaining power.
- Decline of Intra-Party Democracy: Unlike the UK, where internal party elections are robust, Indian political parties tend to function as highly centralized organizations, with power concentrated in the party leadership.
The Anti-Defection Law — How Accountability Was Broken
The functional reality of parliamentary accountability was fundamentally altered by the Fifty-Second Amendment in 1985, which introduced the Tenth Schedule (Anti-Defection Law). Designed to stop floor-crossing and political horse-trading, it produced a powerful unintended consequence: it made it legally impossible for legislators to hold the executive accountable.
A. How the Anti-Defection Law Works
- The Core Rule: Any legislator who votes against the direction of their party whip or abstains without permission is liable to be disqualified from the House. The Speaker of the relevant House acts as the judge.
- The Supreme Court’s View: In Kihoto Hollohan v. Zachillhu (1992), the Supreme Court upheld the Tenth Schedule as constitutionally valid while the unintended effect on accountability was left unaddressed.
- The Unintended Consequence: The no-confidence motion intended as a rolling check on the executive has been rendered a procedural formality whenever the ruling party holds a working majority.
B. The Double Lock of Loyalty
The result is a two-layered system of enforced loyalty that makes executive accountability almost impossible from within the system:
- Lock 1 — Legislators are bound to the Party: The Anti-Defection Law prevents any Member of Parliament from freely voting their conscience on confidence motions, removing the legislature’s power to discipline the executive.
- Lock 2 — Parties are bound to the Leader: The absence of robust intra-party democracy in India means that party members cannot challenge or remove their own leader internally. The leader becomes virtually irremovable from both inside and outside.
Analysis of Democratic Mandate: Limits of Electoral Legitimacy
The primary objection to term limits is powerful: if voters repeatedly choose the same leader, who is the Constitution to overrule them?
- The Voter Sovereignty Case: Repeated electoral endorsement reflects the democratic will of the majority. A term limit appears, at first glance, to be paternalistic.
- Elections Carry Too Heavy a Burden: When parliamentary accountability is broken, elections become the only check — an unrealistic burden for a single instrument to bear once every five years.
- The Unequal Playing Field: Incumbency compounds through state resources, media access, and patronage networks. A ‘free choice’ made on a heavily tilted field is not truly free.
- Constitutional Safeguards are Not Anti-Democratic: As Fareed Zakaria argues, ‘without constitutional liberalism, democracy can produce illiberal outcomes.’ Term limits are not constraints on democracy — they are its architecture.
Key Challenges Arising from Prolonged Incumbency
When executive power is concentrated in a single office without formal constraints, constitutional scholars identify four compounding institutional risks that threaten democratic health.
- Control over Key Appointments: A long-serving government shapes the Election Commission, higher judiciary, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), and central investigative agencies over time. Each appointment collectively tilts the institutional landscape.
- Domination of the Information Environment: Extended incumbency allows the government to regulate media licensing, advertising flows, and digital platforms — gradually skewing the information environment in its favour.
- Incremental Institutional Decay: In their influential work ‘How to Save a Constitutional Democracy’ (2018), legal scholars Tom Ginsburg and Aziz Huq argue that democratic decline rarely happens through a single dramatic coup — it happens through the slow, incremental erosion of institutions, each individually defensible, but collectively devastating.
- Bureaucratic Realignment: Over time, the civil service aligns with a single leadership style. Senior officials begin to prioritize political loyalty over institutional neutrality.
- Normalizing Concentration: Over time, citizens and institutions begin to treat the concentration of power as normal. Checks that were once robust become vestigial. The absence of formal term limits accelerates this normalization.
- The ‘Boiling Frog’ Effect: Institutional decay under long tenures often goes unnoticed until it reaches a critical threshold — by which point, reversing it requires extraordinary political will.
Global Best Practices — How Other Democracies Manage Power
India is a global outlier among large democracies in having no formal or conventional limit on prime ministerial tenure. The global consensus is clear: unlimited executive power carries structural risks.
A. Presidential Republics with Formal Term Limits
- United States, Two Terms (22nd Amendment, 1951): Following Franklin D. Roosevelt’s four consecutive terms, the US constitutionally limited presidents to two four-year terms.
- South Korea, Single Non-Renewable 5-Year Term: One of the world’s strictest term limit systems, designed explicitly to prevent incumbency abuse.
- Brazil, Indonesia, Colombia: All three large democracies impose formal two-term or single-term limits, responding to historical experiences of executive overreach.
B. Parliamentary Systems and Internal Accountability
- UK, Australia, Canada, Internal Party as the Check: Westminster systems without formal term limits rely on robust internal party democracy to remove leaders — a mechanism absent in India’s centralised party culture.
Why India is Different: India combines no term limits with no intra-party democracy and an Anti-Defection Law that blocks legislative accountability. This triple absence makes India’s situation far more consequential.
Way Forward — Restoring the Balance of Constitutional Power
- Reform the Tenth Schedule (Anti-Defection Law): Votes on confidence and no-confidence motions should be exempted from disqualification provisions, so that MPs can exercise independent judgment without fear of losing their seats. This would restore true parliamentary accountability, ensuring that governments must genuinely retain majority support rather than rely on party compulsion.
- Introduce Term Limits for Executive Leaders: A constitutional provision for a two-consecutive-term limit for the Prime Minister and Chief Ministers, along with a cooling-off period, would promote leadership rotation and prevent excessive concentration of power. This balances the need for experience with the principle of democratic renewal.
- Strengthen Intra-Party Democracy: The Representation of the People Act, 1951 should be amended to mandate regular internal elections within political parties, supervised by the Election Commission. This would reduce centralised leadership control and enable party members to democratically choose their leaders.
- Ensure Transparency in Political Parties: Political parties should be required to publicly disclose leadership tenure, results of internal elections, and their decision-making structures. Such transparency would enhance public trust, enable informed voting, and improve internal accountability.
- Revive Parliamentary Functioning: Introducing minimum sitting days for Parliament and empowering Departmental Standing Committees would strengthen legislative oversight. Better-resourced committees and mandatory consideration of their reports would ensure more effective executive scrutiny.
- Promote Constitutional Morality: Greater emphasis must be placed on constitutional morality, as highlighted by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, encouraging all institutions to uphold not just the letter but also the spirit of the Constitution. This would ensure that power is exercised as a public trust, reinforcing long-term democratic stability.
Conclusion
The milestone of 8,931 days is a constitutional wake-up call for India to fix the power gap between a restricted President and an unrestricted Prime Minister. Ultimately, the strength of the Republic depends on ensuring that every leader in India remains subject to institutional accountability, no matter how popular they may be. “Constitutional morality is not a natural sentiment. It has to be cultivated. Democracy in India is only a top dressing on an Indian soil, which is essentially undemocratic.” — Dr. B.R. Ambedkar
