Vice President of India Jagdeep Dhankhar is a lawyer turned vice president of India since 2022. He has been affiliated with multiple political parties in India, including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Indian National Congress (INC), and the Janata Dal (JD).
Dhankhar on 18 May 1951 in Kithana, a village in the Jhunjhunu district of Rajasthan, Dhankar has an uncanny ability to identify the right moment and person to please. This is a quality that helps him build relationships and navigate complex political dynamics.
He is one person who knows whom to please and how? And after figuring that out he makes the right move to foster goodwill and maintain a positive image through his calculated efforts.
This is what used to happen when he was Governor of West Bengal from 2019 to 2022 and made life difficult for Mamata Banerjee, the melodramatic Chief Minister. His strained relations with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee are well-documented. There were reports of disagreements and controversies during his tenure.
He used to call the state’s DGP, Chief Secretary and instruct them so that he could please his master. He finally succeeded in his mission was the Vice President of India.
He is known for his sermons to MPs in Parliament to prevent opposition MPs from questioning the he failed policies and decisions of the Modi government.
He has a lot of problems with court decisions, and keeps making commenting in seminars every now and then, whereas our Constitution is not just a law book for us but a complete philosophy, which is a mirror of how to take man, society and civilization forward.
Our constitution makers have given different powers to legislature, executive and judiciary, there is separation of power, there are rights of checks and balances, be it the President, executive, Parliament or Supreme Court, no one is sovereign. Rather the Constitution is supreme. Because India is a republican country.
The Constitution has given the Supreme Court the right of judicial review so that it can freely examine the law. If the Parliament passes any law against the provisions and basic spirit of the Constitution, then the Supreme Court has the right to repeal it.
But at the same time, for balance, the Parliament has also been given the right to remove judge and the President by impeachment. In this way, everyone has to work under the Constitution while working under the rule of law.
According to Article 13, “The State shall not make any law which takes away or abridges the fundamental rights mentioned in Part 3 of the Constitution. Every law made in violation of these fundamental rights shall be void to the extent of the violation”.
In other words any person whose fundamental right has been violated can get such law declared void by going to the Supreme Court under Article 32 and to the High Court under Article 226.
India is not like England, where the Parliament is supreme — the highest position in the legal system of England and can make any law with majority.
India is not only a democratic country but also a republican country where the fundamental rights of the people have been protected. Therefore, even if the Parliament makes a law against the fundamental rights, that law can be declared void.
Dhankhar was recently heard again saying:
‘Judges are acting like super parliament, courts cannot order the President’,
This is because he is upset with the recent Supreme Court decisions regarding Tamil Nadu Governor and Wakf law, interference, or perhaps he feels that this would one day curtail his freedom to take decisions as the President in waiting.
