Vice-President of India Jagdeep Dhankhar has termed Parliament as the sole architect of the Constitution of India, asserting that neither the judiciary nor the executive can intervene in its affairs.
Speaking during a plenary session organised at the Union Ministry of Law and Justice as part of the Constitution Day celebrations on Sunday, the Vice-President said when the Constitution was evolved by the Constituent Assembly, the message was loud and clear.
It was in the exclusive domain of Parliament and Parliament alone was the architect of the Constitution to the exclusion of any other agency, be it the Executive or the Judiciary.
Stating that Parliament cannot script a judgement of the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court cannot script a law for the Parliament, Dhankhar said Parliament was reflective of the will of people and people were there through a legitimised mechanism.
He said the supremacy of Parliament as the sole architect of the Constitution was there and not amenable to intervention by either the Executive or the Judiciary.
As per the Vice-President, the Judiciary also survived when it was sanctified by Parliament. The mandate of people could not allow any incursion in the will of people, he noted, adding that aAny incursion would be Constitutional aberration.
He said Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar, architect of the Indian Constitution, never envisioned that there could be an incursion into Parliament’s powers. There was a need to ensure that there was no sacrilege of either organ, he added.
Calling the governance dynamic, he said it needed collaborative effort and issues arising must be ironed out and that there must be a convergence of attitudes.
Calling himself a foot-soldier of the judiciary, Dhankhar said the independence of the judiciary was unquestionable and important to him.
However, the time has come to have a mechanism for a structured interaction between the heads of affairs so that the issues did not come out in the public domain, he added.
The Vice-President further said that the legislature must be free to enact laws, the executive should be free to implement any law and the judiciary should be free to interpret laws.
He said the Constitutional provision allowing interpretative power to the Supreme Court regarding legislation was a small slit and it cannot be a floodgate. He said people with the kind of nationalism they have, these issues will be thrashed out so that Bharat can rise and soar.
The Vice-President further appealed to everyone to reaffirm allegiance to constitutional core values, noting that some were getting ‘out of line’.
Calling the proclamation of Emergency as the darkest period in the period of Indian democracy, Dhankhar said it was not less than a sacrilege of the Constitution of India and was an insult to the Constitution by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Such misadventure cannot be thought of in the present times, he added.
The Vice-President appreciated the ruling dispensation for abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution, which stripped the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir of its special status.
Claiming that Article 370 had made the lives of common people of Jammu and Kashmir hellish, Dhankhar said he was grateful to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that Article 370 was not a part of the Indian Constitution.
He said Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was left out from dealing with Jammu & Kashmir and its integration. The nation paid a heavy price for it and now thankfully, the nation was back on track.
The Vice-President said it was soothing to note that the growth trajectory of the country has been incremental in the last decade. India’s growth was not pyramidical, but a plateau sort as everyone was prospering, he added.
The Vice-President further weighed in on the ‘Bharat v India’ debate, saying that the respect for Indian passport was never this high as it was now.
Calling disruptive technologies as a bedfellow, Dhnakhar said the government was addressing the issue with positivity.
He said affirmative action has ensured that India’s rise has been exponential. However, there were some with weak digestive system. It was the duty of every Indian to believe in Bharat.It was ok to play politics, but when it came to the nation and governance, no one should play politics, he added.