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Civil services

Main article: Civil Services of India

The Civil Services of India are the civil services and the permanent bureaucracy of India. The executive decisions are implemented by the Indian civil servants.

In the parliamentary democracy of India, the ultimate responsibility for running the administration rests with the elected representatives of the people which are the ministers. These ministers are accountable to the legislatures which are also elected by the people based on universal adult suffrage. The ministers are indirectly responsible to the people themselves. But the handful of ministers is not expected to deal personally with the various problems of modern administration. Thus the ministers lay down the policy and it is for the civil servants to enforce it. # ISO certification in India

Cabinet secretary

Main article: Cabinet Secretary of India

The cabinet secretary (IAST: Maṃtrimaṇḍala Saciva) is the top-most executive official and senior-most civil servant of the Government of India. The cabinet secretary is the ex-officio head of the Civil Services Board, the Cabinet Secretariat, the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and the head of all civil services under the rules of business of the government.

The cabinet secretary is generally the senior-most officer of the Indian Administrative Service. The cabinet secretary ranks 11th on the Indian order of precedence. The cabinet secretary is under the direct charge of the prime minister. Presently, the Cabinet Secretary of India is Rajiv Gauba, IAS.# ISO certification in India

Judiciary

Main article: Judiciary of India

India’s independent union judicial system began under the British, and its concepts and procedures resemble those of Anglo-Saxon countries. The Supreme Court of India consists of the chief justice and 33 associate justices, all appointed by the president on the advice of the Chief Justice of India. The jury trials were abolished in India in the early 1960s, after the famous case KM Nanavati v. the State of Maharashtra, for reasons of being vulnerable to media and public pressure, as well as to being misled.

Unlike its United States counterpart, the Indian justice system consists of a unitary system at both state and union levels. The judiciary consists of the Supreme Court of India, high courts at the state level, and district courts and Sessions Courts at the district level.

Supreme Court

Main article: Supreme Court of India

Building of the Supreme Court of India.

The Supreme Court of India is situated in New Delhi, the capital region of India.

The Supreme Court is the highest judicial forum and final court of appeal under the Constitution of India, the highest constitutional court, with the power of constitutional review. Consisting of the Chief Justice of India and 33 sanctioned other judges, it has extensive powers in the form of original, appellate and advisory jurisdictions.# ISO certification in India

As the final court of appeal of the country, it takes up appeals primarily against verdicts of the high courts of various states of the Union and other courts and tribunals. It safeguards fundamental rights of citizens and settles disputes between various governments in the country. As an advisory court, it hears matters which may specifically be referred to it under the constitution by the president. It also may take cognisance of matters on its own (or ‘suo moto’), without anyone drawing its attention to them. The law declared by the supreme court becomes binding on all courts within India and also by the union and state governments. Per Article 142, it is the duty of the president to enforce the decrees of the supreme court.

In addition, Article 32 of the constitution gives an extensive original jurisdiction to the supreme court concerning enforcing fundamental rights. It is empowered to issue directions, orders or writs, including writs in the nature of habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibition, quo warranto and certiorari to enforce them. The supreme court has been conferred with power to direct the transfer of any civil or criminal case from one state high court to another state high court, or from a Court subordinate to another state high court and the supreme court. Although the proceedings in the supreme court arise out of the judgment or orders made by the subordinate courts, of late the supreme court has started entertaining matters in which the interest of the public at large is involved. This may be done by any individual or group of persons either by filing a writ petition at the filing counter of the court or by addressing a letter to the Chief Justice of India, highlighting the question of public importance for redress. These are known as public interest litigations.# ISO certification in India

Elections and voting

Main articles: Elections in India and Politics of India

See also: Election Commission of India

India has a quasi-federal form of government, called “union” or “central” government, with elected officials at the union, state and local levels. At the national level, the head of government, the prime minister, is appointed by the president of India from the party or coalition that has the majority of seats in the Lok Sabha. The members of the Lok Sabha are directly elected for a term of five years by universal adult suffrage through a first-past-the-post voting system. Members of the Rajya Sabha, which represents the states, are elected by the members of State legislative assemblies by proportional representation, except for 12 members who are nominated by the president.

India is currently the largest democracy in the world, with around 900 million eligible voters, as of 2019.

State and local governments

Main articles: State governments of India, Local government § India, and Union territory

State governments in India are the governments ruling states of India and the chief minister heads the state government. Power is divided between union government and state governments. The state legislature is bicameral in five states and unicameral in the rest. The lower house is elected with a five-year term, while in the upper house one-third of the members in the house gets elected every two years with six-year terms.

Local governments function at the basic level. It is the third level of government apart from union and state governments. It consists of panchayats in rural areas and municipalities in urban areas. They are elected directly or indirectly by the people.# ISO certification in India

Finance

See also: Reserve Bank of India

Taxation

Main article: Taxation in India

Reserve Bank of India’s headquarters in Mumbai, India’s financial capital

India has a three-tier tax structure, wherein the constitution empowers the union government to levy income tax, tax on capital transactions (wealth tax, inheritance tax), sales tax, service tax, customs and excise duties and the state governments to levy sales tax on intrastate sale of goods, taxon entertainment and professions, excise duties on manufacture of alcohol, stamp duties on transfer of property and collect land revenue (levy on land owned). The local governments are empowered by the state government to levy property tax and charge users for public utilities like water supply, sewage etc. More than half of the revenues of the union and state governments come from taxes, of which 3/4 come from direct taxes. More than a quarter of the union government’s tax revenues are shared with the state governments.

The tax reforms, initiated in 1991, have sought to rationalise the tax structure and increase compliance by taking steps in the following directions:

• Reducing the rates of individual and corporate income taxes, excises, and customs and making it more progressive
• Reducing exemptions and concessions
• Simplification of laws and procedures
• Introduction of permanent account number (PAN) to track monetary transactions
• 21 of the 29 states introduced value added tax (VAT) on 1 April 2005 to replace the complex and multiple sales tax system

The non-tax revenues of the central government come from fiscal services, interest receipts, public sector dividends, etc., while the non-tax revenues of the States are grants from the central government, interest receipts, dividends and income from general, economic and social services.

Inter-state share in the union tax pool is decided by the recommendations of the Finance Commission to the president.

Total tax receipts of Centre and State amount to approximately 18% of national GDP. This compares to a figure of 37–45% in the OECD.# ISO certification in India

Union budget

Main article: Union budget of India

The Finance minister of India usually presents the annual union budget in the parliament on the last working day of February. However, for the F.Y. 2017–18, this tradition had been changed. Now the budget will be presented on the 1st day of February. The budget has to be passed by the Lok Sabha before it can come into effect on 1 April, the start of India’s fiscal year. The Union budget is preceded by an economic survey which outlines the broad direction of the budget and the economic performance of the country for the outgoing financial year

India’s non-development revenue expenditure had increased nearly five-fold in 2003–04 since 1990–91 and more than tenfold from 1985 to 1986. Interest payments are the single largest item of expenditure and accounted for more than 40% of the total non-development expenditure in the 2003–04 budget. Defence expenditure increased fourfold during the same period and has been increasing to defend from a difficult neighbourhood and external terror threats. In 2020-21, India’s defence budget stood at ₹4.71 trillion (US$59 billion).