Date:28/07/2002 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2002/07/28/stories/2002072804450100.htm

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No Constitutional vacuum

By Harish Khare

NEW DELHI JULY 27 . The Constitution does provide for an immediate but temporary succession in the event of death of the President, but there is no similar provision in case the Vice-President dies in office or should a vacancy arise. Krishan Kant is the first Vice-President to die in office.

Nor does the absence of a Vice-President for a short while produce any constitutional vacuum; hence, there is no move to advance the time-table for the Vice-Presidential election scheduled for August 12.

Article 65 of the Constitution provides for dealing with the situation of a vacancy in the office of President.

It stipulates that the Vice-President "shall act as President'' until a new President gets elected as per the provisions of the Constitution. For example, within hours of Zakir Hussain's death, the then Vice-President, V.V.Giri, acted as President from May 3, 1969 to July 20, 1969. And, again, when Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed died, B.D. Jatti acted as President from February 11 to July 25, 1977.

However, on the other hand, there are many instances of the Vice-President's office remaining vacant because the Constitution-makers did not attach any urgency to filling the vacancy.

All that Article 68 stipulates is that in case of a vacancy in the office of Vice-President, an election to fill the vacancy "shall be held as soon as possible after the occurrence of the vacancy.''

The office of Vice-President, thus, remained vacant when Giri moved to Rashtrapati Bhavan as acting President and later resigned to contest the Presidential poll.

There were "no-Vice President'' interregnums when R. Venkatraman, Shankar Dayal Sharma and K.R. Narayanan moved from Maulana Azad Road to Raisina Hill.

In fact, the Constituent Assembly did consider the "no-Vice-President'' scenario. Prof. K.T. Shah, a member of the Constituent Assembly, wanted to move an amendment to deal with such a contingency.

However, Ambedkar rejected the suggestion on the ground that the only substantive constitutional role a Vice-President performed was to preside over the Rajya Sabha and in case there was a contingency, the Deputy Chairperson could perform that role till a new Vice-President was elected.

It is to be noted that the Vice-President gets no salary as Vice-President, but gets salary and allowances only in his/her capacity as Chairman of the Rajya Sabha (as laid down in the Second Schedule).

So, for now the deputy chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, Najma Heptullah, will be the "officiating chairperson'', just as she did between July 25, 1997 when Mr. Narayanan resigned as Vice-President to take over as President and August 20, 1997 when Krishan Kant took over as Vice-President.