Class 8 Social Science Chapter 6: The Parliamentary System: Legislature and Executive

Where a government's authority comes from

Independence settled who would decide, not how. The first large task of the free country was to write a Constitution, and that document set out the machinery this chapter describes. One of its foundational principles was universal adult franchise, which the previous chapter covered.

From votes to a government

Voters elect the members of the Lok Sabha directly. A majority group from among those elected members then forms the government. Put that chain together and the point becomes clear: the government exists because enough elected members support it, and those members are there because voters put them there.

What that chain is for

It means a government functions with the consent of the people rather than by its own authority. Nothing in the arrangement makes a government good. What it does is make a government removable, which is a different and more reliable guarantee.

Parliament is the country's supreme lawmaking body

It makes law for the country. Its members are all the people's representatives, whether elected or nominated, and it guides and controls what the government does. Two jobs, then: writing law, and watching the people who carry law out.

Three parts, not two

Here is the detail most often got wrong. The Indian Parliament consists of the President and two Houses. One is the Lok Sabha, also called the House of the People or the Lower House. The other is the Rajya Sabha, the Council of States or Upper House.

Why the President belongs to it

Because a bill does not become an act without the President's assent. If you leave the President out of your picture of Parliament, the last step of lawmaking has nowhere to sit. Membership of the Houses and membership of Parliament are not the same thing.

The word bicameral

A legislature with two Houses is called bicameral. The word is worth taking apart: bi means two and cameral means chamber or house. So it describes the structure and nothing else. It says nothing about parties, and nothing about how either chamber is filled.

How the Lok Sabha is filled

The people choose their representatives for it by direct election, on the basis of universal adult suffrage. The Constitution envisages a maximum of 550 members for this House. Seats are allotted to states according to population, so a populous state sends more members than a small one.

How the Rajya Sabha is filled

Its members are elected indirectly, by the electoral college described in the previous chapter, which means the elected members of the state assemblies. The number of seats a state gets here is also based on its population.

The counting of Lok Sabhas

There have been seventeen Lok Sabhas since the first, which was constituted in 1952. The eighteenth was constituted in June 2024. Each one is a separate House with its own membership, which is why they are numbered rather than treated as one continuous body.

Why have two Houses at all

The Constituent Assembly discussed this at length. The view that prevailed was that a single directly elected House would not be enough for the challenges an independent India would face, and that federalism required a Council of States.

Federalism, and what follows from it

India practises federalism, a form of government in which power is distributed between the centre, the states and local governments. The system is meant to hold a balance between national unity and local interests. The second House is one of the places that balance is built in. Its composition is different and its method of election is different, both on purpose. A House chosen by the state assemblies speaks for the states as states, not as a collection of constituencies, which a directly elected House cannot do by its nature.

Borrowed from Britain, and not only Britain

Several features of the Indian Constitution were drawn from other countries, and Britain's system inspired the parliamentary form here. But the makers had other sources too, and the chapter is careful to list them.

The other three sources

They had practical experience of British colonial governance structures, limited though their part in it was, which gave them familiarity with parliamentary procedure. They had the memory of the ancient republics, the mahajanapadas. And they had the village panchayats, where elders took decisions collectively.

Who keeps order in each House

Each House has a presiding officer, whose job is to see that debate and discussion are conducted in an orderly way. The members of the Lok Sabha elect a Speaker for the purpose. A Speaker runs the sittings, decides who may speak, keeps discipline, and sees the rules are kept.

And in the other House

In the Rajya Sabha the chair is taken by India's Vice President, as that House's chairperson. Notice the difference: one presiding officer is elected by the House itself, the other holds a separate constitutional office and chairs the House as part of it.

The Sengol

On 14 August 1947 Jawaharlal Nehru was handed the Sengol, a gold-plated silver sceptre, as a symbol of the transfer of power. Today it stands beside the Speaker's chair in the new chamber. Its origins are in the Chola period, when a new ruler received it as a reminder that dharma must guide whatever power he held. Nandi sits at its top as a figure of justice.

Two buildings

The old Parliament House, built in the 1920s, is now called Samvidhan Sadan. The Constituent Assembly met there, and it served as Parliament House for more than seven decades. The new building, Sansad Bhavan, was put up to meet growing needs of capacity, technology, sustainability and safety.

Scenario:

A class visiting Delhi is shown two Parliament buildings standing near each other. The older one was put up in the 1920s and is now called Samvidhan Sadan. The Constituent Assembly met in it, and it did duty as Parliament House for seven decades and more. The newer one is called Sansad Bhavan. It was built for capacity, technology, sustainability and safety. A student asks why the old building was not simply enlarged. Another asks why it was kept at all, rather than taken down to make room.

Analysis:

A legislature is a set of rules about who decides what, and the hall it sits in is a convenience. Keeping the old hall is a way of keeping the record of how those rules were agreed.

Activity:

Find out what your own state assembly building was before it became an assembly, if it was anything else.

Title:

Count your own representatives

Safety:

Reading and arithmetic only.

What You Notice:

The two numbers are not the same, and both follow from population rather than from the size of the state on a map.

The Sengol, a gold-plated silver sceptre of Chola origin, was handed to Jawaharlal Nehru on 14 August 1947 and now stands near the Speaker's chair.

The old Parliament House of the 1920s, now Samvidhan Sadan, housed the Constituent Assembly and served as Parliament House for more than seven decades.

The Constitution envisages a maximum of 550 members for the Lok Sabha, which is a ceiling rather than the number currently elected.

The three parts of Parliament — PRESIDENT, PEOPLE, STATES — The President, the House of the People, and the Council of States.

The four sources of the design — BRITAIN, PRACTICE, REPUBLICS, PANCHAYATS — Britain's system, experience of colonial procedure, the ancient mahajanapadas, and the village panchayats.

The primary job

Making law is the first of the things a legislature exists to do. The Constitution does not leave the method to habit: it sets out an elaborate and demanding route, and the length of that route is deliberate.

Three words, in order

A law ordinarily comes into force through an instrument that is called an act, and every act begins life as a bill. A bill is a proposed law in draft. The bill has to be approved by Parliament before it can be enacted, and until then it is a draft and nothing more.

Why the distinction matters

Newspapers use the two words loosely and it causes real confusion. A bill can be amended, defeated, or simply left alone. Nothing in it binds anybody. An act does. The moment at which one becomes the other is therefore worth knowing exactly.

Where a bill starts

Most bills may be introduced in either House of Parliament. That is a real choice, not a formality, and the chapter's own example began in the upper House rather than the lower one.

Reading, and where the name comes from

The bill is read. The practice began in the British Parliament, where many members could not read, so a clerk would read the contents out for members to discuss. Today members read the bill themselves before the discussion takes place, and the stage keeps its old name.

The committee stage

A bill may be referred to a standing committee, which is a permanent committee of members of Parliament. The membership can change while the committee as a structure continues. It scrutinises what the government is doing, makes recommendations, and asks questions about actions taken.

An important qualification

Not every bill goes to a committee. The step exists and is used, but it is available rather than compulsory, which is a detail the flow diagram of the process hides.

Clause by clause

A bill is made of clauses, which are the parts that set out its specific details. The RTE's clauses, for instance, fix the age group it applies to. At this stage the House discusses the clauses one at a time and votes on amendments to them.

The vote, and then again

Then the House votes on the bill as a whole. If it passes, the entire process is repeated in the other House. Two Houses means two full examinations, which is a large part of what the second House is for.

Assent, and the Gazette

After both Houses have passed it, the bill goes to the President for assent. Then comes notification in the Gazette, the official government publication where legal documents and formal notices are announced. Only after all of this is there an act.

One bill that cannot choose its House

A Money Bill is concerned with financial matters, including taxation and government borrowing. Only the Lok Sabha may take one up, and even in that House it cannot be brought in without the President having recommended it first.

Why that exception exists

Money bills are about public revenue, and the Lok Sabha is the House the public elects directly. Putting the beginning of such a bill in the directly elected House ties the power of taxing most closely to the people who pay.

A law with a long story

The chapter follows one act the whole way. Its full name is the Right to Education Act, 2009 and everybody calls it the RTE. It came into existence in August 2009, but the idea behind it was about a century older.

Where the idea came from

Its roots are in that part of the Constitution called the Directive Principles. The makers of the Constitution wanted it implemented within a decade of independence. That did not happen, and the consequence was countless children with no access to education.

The argument in court

In the early 1990s somebody argued in court that the right was already inside the Fundamental Rights, specifically the right to life, because education is needed to lead a meaningful life. That argument reframed the whole question: not a goal the state should pursue, but a right it was already bound by.

The amendment

Some years after that, Parliament acted at last, through the 86th Constitutional Amendment Act of 2002. It inserted Article 21A, under which the state must give every child between the ages of six and fourteen a free and compulsory education.

From amendment to bill

Six years after that, the bill was tabled in the Rajya Sabha. A committee studied it thoroughly and suggested modifications. The major debate was about funding, because new schools, buildings and teachers for millions of children would cost a great deal.

The decision, and what followed

By 2008 members judged it was time. Elections followed the next year, the incoming government took the matter up, and that August the Lok Sabha passed the bill. Assent followed, and it was an act. It has since created legal routes for children to attend school, led to new school buildings, and secured free books and uniforms. Those are the effects of a statute rather than of a principle, which is the difference the whole nineteen-year journey was about.

Scenario:

The makers of the Constitution wanted free and compulsory education in place within ten years of independence. It did not happen. In the early 1990s somebody argued in court that the right was already inside the right to life, since education is needed to live a meaningful life. The 86th Constitutional Amendment of 2002 then inserted Article 21A. It required the state to provide free and compulsory education for children aged six to fourteen. The bill was tabled six years after that. A committee studied it and proposed changes. The main dispute was cost: schools, buildings and teachers for millions of children. It was passed in 2009.

Analysis:

A right written as a direction to the state waited fifty years for a statute. The waiting was not indifference so much as arithmetic, which is why the committee stage mattered here.

Activity:

Find one other act whose idea is older than its date, and say where the idea first appears.

Title:

Chart one law's journey

Safety:

Take care with the scissors.

What You Notice:

The order of the stages does not change when the starting House does, which is the point of allowing either.

The reading stage of a bill is named after a time when a clerk read the contents out, because many members of the British Parliament could not read.

The idea behind the Right to Education Act was about a century older than the act itself, which came into existence in August 2009.

A Money Bill cannot even be introduced without the President's prior recommendation, on top of being confined to the Lok Sabha.

The stages of lawmaking — INTRODUCE, READ, REFER, CLAUSE, VOTE, REPEAT, ASSENT, NOTIFY — The middle of the list happens twice, once in each House, and the last two happen only once.

The RTE's four stages — PRINCIPLE, COURT, AMENDMENT, ACT — A Directive Principle, a court argument in the 1990s, Article 21A in 2002, and the act in 2009.

Four jobs, set by the Constitution

The Constitution lays down what Parliament has to do, and the duties fall under four heads: constitutional functions, lawmaking, executive accountability, and financial accountability. The previous topic covered the second of those. This one takes the other three.

The constitutional functions

Parliament elects the President and the Vice President, and it amends the Constitution. Those are vital functions, and higher grades take up others. Beyond acts of that kind, the Constitution's own central values are Parliament's to uphold.

What upholding those values involves

Four things are named. Enabling parliamentary democracy through universal adult suffrage. Following the separation of powers between legislature, executive and judiciary. Ensuring federalism. And upholding both the Fundamental Rights and the Directive Principles, through the laws and policies it frames.

Notice what kind of duty that is

None of the four is a single action to be completed. They are standing obligations, tested by every law passed and every law not passed. A legislature can satisfy its procedures and still fail at them, which is why they are listed separately from lawmaking.

Who the executive actually is

The Union Executive is made up of the Prime Minister together with the ministers. Their first responsibilities are to carry out and enforce the laws, and to see that the government runs effectively. They take the decisions about its day-to-day working, within the principles the Constitution and the laws lay down.

And who they answer to

They are answerable to the Lok Sabha. That is the whole of what executive accountability means, and the chapter gives the mechanisms through which the answering is actually done.

Question Hour

Typically the first hour of a parliamentary sitting is set aside for questions. Members of Parliament may ask ministers about government policies and activities, and the ministers have to answer. It is the most visible part of accountability and the part most often shown on television.

What accountable actually means

The word does not mean punished. It means that the executive must justify all its actions and decisions. A minister who gives a poor answer has still been made to answer, in public, on the record, in front of the House and the press, and that is a real constraint.

Committees, which go deeper

Committees of a special kind meet too, and a ministry appearing before one has to account for its policies and take questions on them. Membership may be drawn from several parties at once, which is exactly what gives the scrutiny its force.

Why a committee can do what an hour cannot

An hour of questions cannot examine one programme state by state. A committee can, and it leaves a written record that outlasts the minister. The two mechanisms are not rivals; one produces an answer that day and the other produces a document.

A committee at work

A standing committee on health examined whether Ayush facilities were being placed alongside primary health centres, community health centres and district hospitals. Going through the states, it found that some states and union territories had not opened a separate department for Ayush at all, and it recommended that they should.

And the reply

The ministry then had to answer that recommendation in writing. The recommendation and the reply were printed together in the committee's own report, where anybody may read them. That is the quiet machinery of accountability, and no minister was questioned on the floor of the House at any point in it.

Financial accountability

Parliament approves and monitors what the government spends. It does this through the annual budget, and by examining how funds are distributed among the different ministries.

Whose money is it

That is the question the chapter asks, and the answer settles why the power exists. The government spends public money. The body that approves the spending is the body the public elects, which is the same logic that confines a Money Bill to the Lok Sabha.

What Parliament is owed in return

The government is expected to give Parliament the information it needs, in time and accurately. Accountability is impossible without that. A question answered late or answered loosely defeats the mechanism without appearing to refuse it.

Not always solemn

The chapter is at pains to say that Parliament is not uniformly formal and serious. Poetry and humour have their place in it, and two examples are given from recent decades.

A verse in a budget speech

Nirmala Sitharaman quoted a couplet from the Tirukkural, an old Tamil work on ethics and morality, while presenting the Union Budget for 2025-26 on 1 February 2025. Its sense is that just as living things depend on the rains, people depend on being governed well. The desks were thumped in approval.

Poetry across the floor, and why it matters

In a sharp Lok Sabha debate in 2011, Sushma Swaraj quoted a verse to attack the government. Its gist was that the complaint lay not against the robbers but against the quality of the leadership. The then Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, answered with a verse of his own, asking to be judged by his persistence rather than by his appearance. That is in a textbook because it tells you something about the institution. A chamber where opponents answer each other in verse is one where disagreement is being conducted rather than suppressed, which is the condition the other three functions depend on.

Scenario:

A parliamentary standing committee on health took up one narrow question. It examined whether Ayush facilities were being placed alongside primary health centres, community health centres and district hospitals. Going state by state, it noticed that some states and union territories had not opened a separate department for Ayush at all. It recommended that they should. The ministry then had to reply to that recommendation in writing. The whole exchange was printed in the committee's own report, recommendation and reply side by side, where anybody may read it. No minister was questioned on the floor of the House at any point in this.

Analysis:

Question Hour is the visible part of accountability and the committee report is the durable part. One produces an answer that day; the other produces a record that outlasts the minister.

Activity:

Find one standing committee report on a service you use, and note a single recommendation it made.

Title:

Write three questions

Safety:

Writing only.

What You Notice:

A question that asks for a number is harder to avoid than a question that asks for an opinion.

A standing committee on health went through the states one by one and found that some had not opened a separate department for Ayush at all.

The Union Budget speech for 2025-26, delivered on 1 February 2025, opened with a couplet from the Tirukkural, an ancient Tamil treatise on ethics.

In a Lok Sabha debate in 2011, a criticism of the government was made in verse and the Prime Minister replied with a verse of his own.

The four functions — CONSTITUTION, LAW, MINISTERS, MONEY — Constitutional functions, lawmaking, executive accountability, financial accountability.

The two accountability mechanisms — AN HOUR, AND A REPORT — Question Hour gives an answer the same day; a committee gives detail and a published record.

A hint hidden in the order of the chapters

Part V of the Constitution opens with a chapter on the Executive, covering the President, the Vice President and the ministers. Parliament's own role and functions come in the chapter after that. The textbook asks why, and leaves the question open, which is a fair thing to wonder about.

The President: head of state

India's President is Head of State, and also the executive's head in name. The word in name is carrying the weight there. Running the government is the work of the Prime Minister with the Council of Ministers.

What the President actually does

Among other duties, the office appoints a Prime Minister and the other ministers, calls Parliament into session, and assents to bills. The ministers aid and advise the President, and that is the ordinary way all of these duties get exercised.

When the office is not merely formal

In specific circumstances the President may exercise discretionary powers. The chapter gives the clearest case: a political crisis, such as an election in which no party holds a clear majority in the Lok Sabha. Somebody then has to decide whom to ask to form a government.

The Prime Minister, and the appointment

Under India's parliamentary system the de facto executive authority belongs to the Prime Minister. De facto means in fact, as against in name, and the pairing with the President's headship in name is deliberate. One office holds the form and the other holds the work. Whoever leads the majority in the Lok Sabha, whether a single party or a coalition, is invited by the President to take the office. The Prime Minister then serves with the support of a majority of that House, which is where the office comes from and where it can be lost.

Four key functions

The Prime Minister leads the Council of Ministers, advises the President, coordinates the work of the different ministries, and shapes national policies. Together they take the decisions and run the government.

Collective responsibility

The Prime Minister, with the Council of Ministers, answer collectively to the Lok Sabha. Collectively is an important word: they answer as a body for what the government does, not merely as individuals for their own departments.

Who introduces most bills

Most bills reaching Parliament for discussion start with the government rather than with a private member. The previous topic's picture of Parliament scrutinising the executive therefore needs a companion: the executive is also the main source of what Parliament scrutinises.

The permanent officials

A permanent group of officials called civil servants help in implementing laws and policies. They are also known as administrators or bureaucrats. They work under the direction of ministers and see that government departments run smoothly. They are called permanent because governments change and they do not. A minister arrives with a mandate and leaves with an election; the official carrying out the work was there before and is there after, which is what gives administration its continuity.

A resignation that was not required

In 1956 Lal Bahadur Shastri, then Railway Minister, resigned after a train accident. He was not blamed for it. On his own view, moral responsibility for whatever happens inside a ministry rests with its minister. Nehru declined the resignation at first; Shastri insisted, and in the end it was accepted. The case separates two ideas that look alike. Legal fault is one thing and ministerial responsibility is another, and the second can be accepted where the first does not apply. Shastri later became Prime Minister.

Legislature and executive, compared

Parliament is the country's supreme lawmaking body, made up of the President along with the two Houses. The Executive lists the President, the Vice President, and the ministers headed by the Prime Minister. Notice that the President appears in both lists.

The division of roles

The legislature makes laws and oversees the Executive's work. The Executive enforces the laws the legislature has made. Both can introduce bills, but most bills come from the Executive. The legislature puts questions and asks for explanations; the Executive supplies the information and the explanations in return.

And on money

The legislature sanctions all government-related expenses. The Executive prepares and implements the budget that Parliament has approved. The legislature consults parliamentary committees, while the Executive can act on its own in day-to-day matters and consult committees when it needs to.

The judiciary

The Judiciary interprets and applies the laws of the land, including in particular disputes, and it works through a system of courts. It acts as the custodian of the Constitution, seeing that every branch of government stays within the principles and limits the Constitution sets.

What it checks, and where

If Parliament passes a law that violates the constitutional framework, the Judiciary may say so. If a violation occurs when the Executive implements a law, the Judiciary may step in there as well. Both the making and the carrying out are open to it.

Checks and balances, stated plainly

The three organs are the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary, and the arrangement between them is called the separation of powers. The point of it is a refusal: no organ is to be the last word on its own conduct, so none becomes too powerful.

The same shape at the state level

Every state has a legislature and an executive of its own, and that legislature is called its State Assembly. Members of the Legislative Assembly, or MLAs, make law in the way Members of Parliament do, on subjects in the State List and the Concurrent List.

Three lists

The Union List and the State List set out the subjects on which the Union and the states respectively may legislate exclusively. The Concurrent List holds subjects where both may. If the Union legislates on a Concurrent List subject, the state is bound to follow it, which is why the RTE applies across the whole country although education sits on that list.

Scenario:

Suppose a single body could make the laws, carry them out, and decide the disputes about them. It would pass a law. It would then enforce that law in whatever way it judged best. If somebody complained of the enforcement, the same body would hear the complaint. It would be deciding whether its own conduct had been lawful. Nothing in that arrangement is impossible, and many states through history have come close to it. India's Constitution refuses it instead, by giving the three jobs to three different organs and letting each one question the others.

Analysis:

Checks and balances are not a tidy diagram but a set of refusals: no organ is allowed to be the last word on its own conduct. That is the whole of what separation of powers protects.

Activity:

Pick a recent law you have heard about and find out which organ proposed it, which passed it, and whether any court has been asked about it.

Title:

Sort the subjects

Safety:

Reading only.

What You Notice:

The Concurrent List is where most arguments between the Union and the states begin, because both are entitled to be there.

Part V of the Constitution opens with a chapter on the Executive and puts Parliament's role in the chapter after it, which the textbook invites readers to wonder about.

In 1956 a Railway Minister resigned after a train accident for which he was not blamed, and the Prime Minister declined the resignation before finally accepting it.

The President appears in both the legislature and the executive, being part of Parliament and also part of the Union Executive.

The President and the Prime Minister — FORM, AND WORK — The President holds the form of executive authority; the Prime Minister holds the work of it.

The three organs — MAKE, ENFORCE, JUDGE — The legislature makes law, the executive enforces it, the judiciary judges whether either stayed inside the Constitution.