India’s messiest presidential poll is accompanied by a national crisis. No state seems free from corruption, crime or insurgency. The system appears collapsed. This should cause little surprise. The spirit and intent of the Constitution were aborted at birth. A conspiracy of silence attended the murder of our Constitution. The correspondence related to the controversy between India’s first President Dr Rajendra Prasad and Prime Minister Nehru brings this out with startling clarity. Before India’s first general election President Prasad raised relevant questions about his constitutional powers. In a lengthy note dated 21 March 1950 he asked: "Does the Constitution contemplate any situation in which the President has to act independently of the advice of Ministers?"
Attorney-General MC Setelvad responded with a note to the government on 6 October 1950. The note was surprisingly unconvincing coming from one reputed to be a celebrated jurist. Article 53 of the Constitution vested executive powers of the Union in the President who could exercise them directly or through officers subordinate to him. Setelvad relied on Article 74 to curtail the powers of the President. He wrote: