Article 74 (Constitution of India)

Article 74 of the Constitution of the Republic of India provides for a Council of Ministers which shall aid the President in the exercise of his functions.

(1) There shall be a Council of Ministers with the Prime Minister at the head to aid and advise the President who shall, in the exercise of his functions, act in accordance with such advises. (The bolded text was added in by the Forty-second Amendment of the Constitution of India and came into effect on the 3rd of January 1977.)

Provided that the President may require the Council of Ministers to reconsider such advice, either generally or otherwise, and the President shall act in accordance with the advises tendered after such reconsideration. (This para is added by the Forty-fourth Amendment of the Constitution of India in the year 1978)

(2) The question if any, and if so what, advice was tendered by Ministers to the President shall not be inquired into in any court.

Before the 42nd amendment, stated that, "there shall be a Council of Ministers with the Prime Minister at the head to aid and advise the President in the exercise of his functions". However, there was a slight ambiguity whether the advice of the Council of Ministers is binding on the President. Forty-second Amendment of the Constitution of India (1976) made it explicit that the President shall, "act in accordance with such advice". The amendment went into effect from 3 January 1977.

The 44th Amendment (1978) however added that the President can send the advice back for reconsideration once. But if the Council of Ministers sends the same advice again to the President then the President must accept it. The amendment went into effect from 20 June 1979

In this case Supreme Court made some very important pronouncements regarding scope and effect of Clause (2) of Article 74. Article 74(2) barred courts from inquiring into the advice given by Council of Ministers to President. In a way the advice of Council of Ministers was kept out of Supreme Court's power of Judicial Review by this article. In this regard Supreme Court held that although Article 74(2) bars judicial review so far as the advice given by the Ministers is concerned, it does not bar scrutiny of the material on the basis of which the advice is given. It also said that the material on the basis of which advice was tendered does not become part of the advice and courts are justified in probing as to whether there was any material on the basis of which the advice was given, and whether it was relevant for such advice and the President could have acted on it.

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