Article 78 Requires the Prime Minister to Report Council of Ministers Decisions to the President, and Three Presidents Between 1990 and 2006 Sent Back Two Bills, an Ordinance and a Cabinet Recommendation

Article 78 of the Constitution gives the Prime Minister three duties towards the President. The Prime Minister must communicate to the President all decisions of the Council of Ministers on the administration of the Union and on proposals for legislation. The Prime Minister must also furnish any information on those subjects that the President calls for. And “if the President so requires”, the Prime Minister must submit to the Council any matter on which a single minister has decided but which the Council has not considered.

The Constituent Assembly took the article up on 7 January 1949, when it was draft Article 65. According to the record on constitutionofindia.net, one member moved to add the words “as soon as they are made” to clause (a), and the Assembly adopted the draft without amendment. Article 74 and the rule that the President acts on ministers’ advice are covered in our account of the Union executive. This piece follows the other direction, what the President is told and what the President can do with it.

What the Supreme Court says the article is for

On 23 August 1974 a seven-judge bench decided Shamsher Singh v. State of Punjab, a case about the President’s place in a parliamentary system. Justice V. R. Krishna Iyer, in a separate opinion written for himself and Justice P. N. Bhagwati, said the President “is not at all a glorified cipher”. He wrote that the President’s vigilant presence makes for good government if the President uses what Bagehot described as “the right to be consulted, to warn and encourage”.

The opinion ties that to Article 78. Used well, it says, the article keeps the President in close touch with the Prime Minister on matters of national importance and policy significance. The same opinion says acting on ministerial advice does not mean accepting a ministry’s first thoughts at once. The President can state objections to a proposed course of action and ask the ministers to reconsider, but in the last resort must accept their final advice.

The paper that reaches Rashtrapati Bhavan

Article 77(3) tells the President to make rules for transacting Government business. The Government of India (Transaction of Business) Rules, 1961, issued from Rashtrapati Bhavan on 14 January 1961, turn Article 78 into routines. The copy the Cabinet Secretariat publishes is amended up to 13 January 2025.

Rule 8 says that cases listed in the Third Schedule must be submitted before orders issue, either to the Prime Minister, to the President, or to both. The schedule runs to 42 serial numbers and some of them go to the Prime Minister alone. Appointing the Prime Minister and other ministers, and bills passed by Parliament for assent, go to the President. Summoning or proroguing (formally ending a session of) the Houses, dissolving the Lok Sabha, promulgating or withdrawing ordinances, and appointing Supreme Court judges and Governors go to the Prime Minister and the President.

Rule 10 and the Fourth Schedule cover what goes “for information”, as early as possible. The list includes the agenda and papers for meetings of the Cabinet and its committees, the record of decisions reached, weekly intelligence summaries from the Director of the Intelligence Bureau, fortnightly reports on the internal political situation from the states and Union Territories, and important telegrams between the Ministry of External Affairs and its missions abroad. The last item is any other information on Union administration and legislative proposals “as the President may call for”, which restates clause (b) of Article 78.

Clause (c) has a counterpart in the Second Schedule, which lists the cases that must go before the full Cabinet. Its final entry takes in any case the President or the Prime Minister may by order require to be brought before the Cabinet. Neither Article 78 nor the rules name a schedule of meetings between the two office holders. The written duties are about papers.

What the President can do with a bill

Article 111 governs a bill once both Houses pass it. The President declares assent or withholds it. For any bill that is not a Money Bill (Article 110 defines it as a bill containing only provisions on matters such as taxes, government borrowing and the custody of the Union’s funds), the President may also, as soon as possible after the bill is presented, return it with a message asking the Houses to reconsider it or specified provisions, and to consider amendments the President recommends. If the Houses pass it again, with or without amendment, the President “shall not withhold assent”. The article sets no deadline for a decision, and our account of the Union executive covers the Supreme Court’s opinion of 20 November 2025 on timelines.

Two cases show the range of choices. The first is the Indian Post Office (Amendment) Bill, 1986, which the PRS Legislative Brief on the 2023 Post Office Bill describes as meant to align the grounds for intercepting postal articles with the Constitution’s limits on fundamental rights. Parliament passed it and sent it to the President in December 1986. PRS records that President Zail Singh neither assented nor returned it before he left office in July 1987, that President R. Venkataraman returned it to Parliament in January 1990, and that the government withdrew it in 2002.

K. C. Singh, who was deputy secretary to Zail Singh from 1983 to 1987, writes in an excerpt from his book published on 17 March 2023 that the President reasoned that a returned bill could be passed again and would then have to receive assent under the 44th Amendment. Singh calls the course a “pocket veto”. The President also consulted legal experts on whether the Constitution sets a deadline for the President to act.

The second case is the Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Amendment Bill, 2006. Under Article 102, holding an office of profit under a government disqualifies a person from Parliament unless Parliament has declared the office exempt by law, and the bill lengthened that exemption list. The Tribune reported on 4 August 2006 that the bill went to the President on 25 May and that President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam returned it about a week later. He asked for a single criterion for an office of profit that could apply across the states and Union Territories, and the Tribune quotes him as saying there should be “no ad hoc approach”. India Together adds that he questioned applying the law retrospectively and covering offices whose holders already faced disqualification petitions.

Parliament passed the bill again without change, and Article 111 left the President no choice. The enactment is Act 31 of 2006, dated 18 August 2006. Its text deems some of the new clauses to have been inserted from 4 April 1959.

Ordinances, and the Cabinet’s second answer

Article 123 lets the President promulgate an ordinance when both Houses are not in session and the President is satisfied that circumstances require immediate action. An ordinance has the force of an Act of Parliament and lapses six weeks after Parliament reassembles unless both Houses disapprove it sooner. The Budget, Monsoon and Winter calendar explains why gaps between sessions arise. Under the rules, a proposal for an ordinance goes to the Cabinet under the Second Schedule and, for promulgation or withdrawal, to the Prime Minister and the President under the Third.

Dawn reported on 25 August 2002 that Kalam had earlier that week returned an electoral reforms ordinance, asking for clarifications on certain provisions. On Saturday 24 August the Cabinet refused to change it and sent it back, and the Tribune reported on 26 August that Kalam had consented to its promulgation. India Together says Parliament then enacted the measure, inserting section 33B into the Representation of the People Act, 1951. On 13 March 2003 the Supreme Court, in People’s Union for Civil Liberties v. Union of India, held that section 33B was unconstitutional.

When the President asks the Cabinet to think again

The proviso to Article 74(1) lets the President require the Council to reconsider its advice, and the President must then act on the advice given after reconsideration. It came in with the 44th Amendment on 20 June 1979, and unlike a bill or an ordinance, a Cabinet recommendation that the President returns need never become an order at all.

On the night of Tuesday 21 October 1997, Outlook reported, the Home Secretary brought the Cabinet’s recommendation to impose President’s rule in Uttar Pradesh to Rashtrapati Bhavan at about 2.30 am. President K. R. Narayanan sent it back within half an hour. Outlook says he had been reading the Supreme Court’s S. R. Bommai judgment of 1994 and had spoken to the Attorney General, and calls it the first time a presidential assent was refused on a matter under Article 356. LiveLaw’s centenary tribute says Prime Minister I. K. Gujral then spoke to the President and withdrew the Cabinet’s decision, and that Narayanan did the same in 1998 on a Bihar proposal. Article 356 and the Bommai ruling have their own account.

Where the limits are still argued

In 2006 the Houses passed the bill again and the President had to assent, which is the last word the proviso to Article 111 gives Parliament. The Post Office Bill, returned in 1990, never became law.

Time is the open question. Article 111 sets no period for the President’s first decision. The Supreme Court’s opinion of 20 November 2025 records that on 20 May 1949 the Constituent Assembly accepted B. R. Ambedkar’s amendment to delete “six weeks” from the draft clause, and that H. V. Kamath had argued for a fixed timeline to encourage prompt action. The Court also records the argument of the parties opposing the reference, who said that “as soon as possible” in Article 200 meant a bill could not be kept pending indefinitely. Answering a reference the President made on 13 May 2025, the five-judge bench held that the President, too, “cannot be bound by judicially prescribed timelines” under Article 201, the article on bills a Governor reserves for the President.