NATURE OF ADVICE BY MINISTERS‌

Article 74 provides for a council of ministers with the Prime Minister at the head to aid and advise the President in the exercise of his functions. The 42nd and 44th Constitutional Amendment Acts have made the advice binding on the President.1 Further, the nature of advice tendered by ministers to the President cannot be enquired by any court. This provision emphasises the intimate and the confidential relationship between the President and the ministers.

In 1971, the Supreme Court held that 'even after the dissolution of the Lok Sabha, the council of ministers does not cease to hold office. Article 74 is mandatory and, therefore, the president cannot exercise the executive power without the aid and advise of the council of ministers. Any exercise of executive power without the aid and advice will be unconstitutional as being violative of Article 74’. Again in 1974, the court held that 'wherever the Constitution requires the satisfaction of the President, the satisfaction is not the personal satisfaction of the President but it is the satisfaction of the council of ministers with whose aid and on whose advice the President exercises his powers and functions’.