THE COUNCIL OF

MINISTERS OF
INDIA
BYSANYAM SURANA
YEAR 2015

INTRODUCING THE COUNCIL

INTRODUCTION

TheUnion Council of Ministersexercisesexecutive

authorityin theRepublic of India.

It consists of seniorministers, called "Cabinet

Ministers", and junior ministers, called "Ministers of
State".

It is led by thePrime Minister.

A smaller executive body, called theUnion Cabinet is

the supreme decision-making body in India.

INTRODUCTION continued

Only the Prime Minister and ministers of the rank of

"Cabinet Minister" are members of the Cabinet.

The most senior civil servant in India, called theCabinet

Secretary, leads theCabinet Secretariat, and provides
administrative assistance to the Council of Ministers.

Ministers of State are tasked with assisting Cabinet

Ministers in their work.

REGULATIONS

As a collective, the Council of Ministers is responsible to

the lower house of theIndian Parliament, called
theHouse of the People.

According to theConstitution of India, the total number

of ministers in the Council of Ministers must not exceed
15% of the total number of members of the House of the
People.

REGULATIONS continued

Ministers must be members of parliament.

Any minister who is not a member of either the lower

or upper houses of parliament for six consecutive
months is automatically stripped of his or her
ministerial post.

RANKING

There are three categories of ministers, in descending

order ofrank:

Cabinet Minister: member of cabinet; leads a ministry

Minister of State (Independent Charges): junior minister

not reporting to a cabinet minister

Minister of State (MoS): junior minister reporting to a

cabinet minister, usually tasked with a specific
responsibility in that ministry

FUNCTIONS
Though

there is an elected President at the top of the

Government structure, the constitution in reality
establishes a British cabinet type of Government in
India.
Article 74(1) requires thePresidentto have a Council
of Ministers with the Prime Minister at the head to
aid and advice him in the exercise of his power. To
remove the impression that the advice given by the
Council of Ministers may not be binding on the
President, the 42nd amendment of the constitution
has made the ministerial advice expressly binding on
the President.

FUNCTIONS continued

In terms of Article 74(1) the President is bound to have a

Council of Ministers with the Prime Minister at the head.
The Prime Minister is appointed by the President and all
other ministers are appointed by the President on the
advice of the Prime Minister. India has a three-tier
ministry consisting of cabinet ministers, ministers of
state and the deputy ministers. The term cabinet is
absent in the constitution. Usually senior ministers with
independent charge of ministries constitute a body that
the Prime Minister consults in arriving at policy
decisions, constitute the cabinet. The cabinet thus is the
policy making part of the ministry. It is an informal body
and its members are chosen by the Prime Minister
himself.

FUNCTIONS continued

Article 75 make the Council of Minister responsible to

the House of People. This obliges the President to
appoint the leader of the majority party as the Prime
Minister and to appoint other ministers on his advice.
Thus the Prime Minister is not the Presidents nominee
but the nations choice. The nation votes a party to
power and its leader becomes the Prime Minister. Indian
general elections are really elections of the Prime
Minister.

FUNCTIONS continued

The Prime Minister and the members of the council of

ministers serve legally during the pleasure of the
President. But the Presidents pleasure is not personal
but political. So long the Prime Minister retains his
support in the House of People; the President cannot
withdraw pleasure from the Prime Minister and the
Council of Ministers.

FUNCTIONS continued

The executive government in India is really the Prime

Ministers government. The cabinet, as in England is the
steering wheel of the government. As the nations chief
executive body, the cabinet performs the following
principal functions.

FUNCTIONS continued

Firstly, it is in charge of administering all the subjects

entrusted to the national government by the union list.
Principal among these functions are providing for security
and defence of the country, maintaining and conducting
the nations foreign affairs, maintaining the system of
communication within the country, keeping the national
economy in good health, preserving and improving interstate relations and a host of other things. Ministers are
put in charge of administrative departments. The
ministers are in reality political heads of administrative
departments of governments. An elaborate bureaucracy
conducts the day to day administration, under the
political control of the ministers. Thus the Cabinet and
the Prime Minister administers the country.

FUNCTIONS continued

In the sphere of law making the cabinet is equally

supreme and the President has only a formal role. The
President is no doubt an integral part of the Parliament.
The President addresses the joint sessions of the
Parliament after every general election and at the
beginning of each session of the Parliament. But the
President only reads out the address drafted for him by
the Cabinet. The President signs the bills passed by the
Parliament into law. But the President does exactly
what the cabinet asks him to do.

FUNCTIONS continued

Again strictly constitutionally, the Parliament is the

nations supreme law making body. But the Prime
Minister and the cabinet have a firm control over the
Parliamentary majority. Because of this majority
support, the Prime Minister and the cabinet can make
the Parliament pass whatever law, the Prime Minister
wants the Parliament to pass. Conversely, the
Parliament shall never pass a bill which the Prime
Minister and the Cabinet oppose. Thus the law making
powers of the Parliament is also the powers of the
Cabinet.

FUNCTIONS continued

The Prime Minister and the Cabinet also have an

absolute control over the nations finances. The annual
budget is prepared at the instance of the cabinet. The
proposals for taxes and expenditures are really made by
the Cabinet, and only formally approved by the
Parliament.

FUNCTIONS continued

Finally, Indian constitution is partially based on the

theory of Parliamentary sovereignty. The sovereignty of
the Parliament realistically means the sovereignty of
the cabinet. Even the judiciary is not beyond cabinet
control. Judges of the Supreme Court and the High
Courts are appointed and transferred by the President
on Cabinet advice. Similarly the Presidents rights to
grant pardon or reprieve or remission of sentences are
also the powers of the Cabinet. Thus the Indian
Cabinet, like its British counterpart enjoys powers of
dictatorial dimensions.

PORTFOLIO OF THE
COUNCIL OF
MINISTERS

PRIME MINISTER

Shri Narendra Modi

Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions

Department of Atomic Energy
Department of Space
All important policy issuesand
All other portfolios not allocated to any Minister

PRIME MINISTER: SHRI

NARENDRA MODI

Continued
CABINET MINISTERS

Shri Raj Nath Singh (Home Affairs)

Smt. Sushma Swaraj (External Affairs

Overseas Indian Affairs)

Shri Arun Jaitley (Finance

Corporate Affairs Information & Broadcasting)

Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu (Urban Development

Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation
Parliamentary Affairs)

Continued

Shri Nitin Jairam Gadkari (Road Transport and Highways

Shipping)

Shri Manohar ParrikarDefence

Shri Suresh Prabhu (Railways)

Shri D. V. Sadananda Gowda (Law & Justice)

Continued

Sushri Uma Bharati (Water Resources,River

Development and Ganga Rejuvenation)

Dr. Najma A. Heptulla (Minority Affairs)

Shri Ramvilas Paswan (Consumer Affairs, Food and

Public Distribution)

Continued

Shri Kalraj Mishra (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises)

Smt. Maneka Sanjay Gandhi (Women and Child

Development)

Continued

Shri Ananth Kumar (Chemicals and Fertilizers)

Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad (Communications and

Information Technology)

Shri Jagat Prakash Nadda (Health and Family Welfare)

Shri Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusapati (Civil Aviation)

Shri Anant Geete (Heavy Industries and Public

Enterprises)

Smt. Harsimrat Kaur Badal (Food Processing Industries)

Continued

Shri Narendra Singh TomarMines

Steel21Shri Chaudhary Birender SinghRural Development
Panchayati Raj
Drinking Water and Sanitation22Shri Jual OramTribal
Affairs23Shri Radha Mohan SinghAgriculture24Shri
Thaawar Chand GehlotSocial Justice and Empowerment

Continued

Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani (Human Resource Development)

Dr. Harsh Vardhan (Science and Technology

Earth Sciences)

Continued
MINISTERS OF STATE (INDEPENDENT CHARGE)

General V. K. Singh (Statistics and Programme

Implementation (Independent Charge)
External Affairs
Overseas Indian Affairs

Shri Inderjit Singh RaoPlanning (Independent Charge)

Defence

Shri Santosh Kumar GangwarTextiles (Independent

Charge)

Shri Bandaru Dattatreya Labour and Employment

(Independent Charge)

Continued

Shri Rajiv Pratap RudySkill Development &

Entrepreneurship (Independent Charge)
Parliamentary Affairs

Shri Shripad Yesso NaikAYUSH (Independent Charge)

Health & Family Welfare

Shri Dharmendra PradhanPetroleum and Natural Gas

(Independent Charge)

Shri Sarbananda SonowalYouth Affairs and Sports

(Independent Charge)

Shri Prakash JavadekarEnvironment, Forest and Climate

Change (Independent Charge)

Continued

Shri Piyush GoyalPower (Independent Charge)

Coal (Independent Charge)
New and Renewable Energy (Independent Charge)

Dr. Jitendra SinghDevelopment of North Eastern Region

(Independent Charge)
Prime Ministers Office
Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions
Department of Atomic Energy
Department of Space

Continued

Smt. Nirmala SitharamanCommerce and Industry

(Independent Charge)

Dr. Mahesh SharmaCulture (Independent Charge)

Tourism (Independent Charge)
Civil Aviation

Continued
MINISTERS OF STATE

Shri Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi (Minority Affairs

Parliamentary Affairs)

Shri Ram Kripal Yadav (Drinking Water and Sanitation)

Shri Haribhai Parthibhai Chaudhary (Home Affairs)

Shri Sanwar Lal Jat (Water Resources,River

Development and Ganga Rejuvenation)

Continued

Shri Mohanbhai Kalyanjibhai Kundariya (Agriculture)

Shri Giriraj Singh(Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises)

Shri Hansraj Gangaram Ahir (Chemicals & Fertilizers)

Shri G. M. Siddeshwara (Heavy Industries and Public

Enterprises)

Continued

Shri Manoj Sinha (Railways)

Shri Nihalchand (Panchayati Raj)

Shri Upendra Kushwaha (Human

ResourcesDevelopment)

Shri Radhakrishnan

(Road Transport & Highways

Shipping)

Continued

Shri Kiren Rijiju (Home Affairs)

Shri Krishan Pal (Social Justice & Empowerment)

Dr. Sanjeev Kumar Balyan (Agriculture)

Shri Mansukhbhai Dhanjibhai Vasava (Tribal Affairs)

Continued

Shri Vishnu Deo Sai (Mines

Steel)

Shri Sudarshan Bhagat (Rural Development)

Prof. (Dr.) Ram Shankar Katheria (Human

ResourceDevelopment)

Shri Y. S. Chowdary (Science and Technology

Earth Science)

Continued

Shri Jayant Sinha (Finance)

Col. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore (Information &

Broadcasting)

Shri Babul Supria (Babul Supriyo) Bara (lUrban

Development
Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation)

Continued

Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti (Food Processing Industries)

Shri Vijay Sampla (Social Justice & Empowerment)

THANK YOU!