The Vice-President of India: Role, Powers and Election

The Vice-President of India is the second-highest constitutional office in the country, sitting just below the President in the order of precedence. Created by Articles 63 to 71 of the Constitution, the post has a deceptively simple job description: preside over the Rajya Sabha, and be ready to step in if the President’s chair falls vacant or the President is unable to act.

Yet the office is more than a spare wheel. The Vice-President is elected by a unique electoral college, is not a member of the House he chairs, cannot be impeached in the usual sense, and belongs neither to the executive nor to the legislature in the way most other senior office-bearers do. This explainer walks through the role, powers, election and history of the office in plain language, and compares it with its famous American counterpart.

Quick Facts

Where the Office Fits in the Constitution

The framers of the Constitution placed the Vice-President in Part V, which deals with the Union executive and Parliament. Article 63 is a single line: there shall be a Vice-President of India. The articles that follow spell out the duties, the method of election, the term and the way disputes are settled.

The article-by-article map

• Article 63: creates the office.
• Article 64: makes the Vice-President the ex-officio Chairman of the Council of States (Rajya Sabha) and bars the holder from any other office of profit while serving as Chairman.
• Article 65: the Vice-President acts as President or discharges the President’s functions in case of a casual vacancy, and during the President’s absence or illness.
• Article 66: election and qualifications.
• Article 67: term of office, resignation and removal.
• Article 68: timing of elections and filling of vacancies.
• Article 69: oath or affirmation, taken before the President or a person appointed by the President.
• Article 70: Parliament may make provision for discharging the President’s functions in other contingencies.
• Article 71: settlement of doubts and disputes about the election.

In the order of precedence, the Vice-President ranks second, immediately after the President and ahead of the Prime Minister. The rank is ceremonial and constitutional; it does not give the Vice-President any share in running the government.

Ex-Officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha

The day-to-day, and by far the most visible, function of the Vice-President is presiding over the Rajya Sabha. The word “ex officio” means the Chairman’s post comes automatically with the office; the Vice-President does not need a separate election or appointment to it. The Council of States, the upper House of Parliament, therefore has a presiding officer who is elected by all of Parliament rather than by the House itself.

The Rajya Sabha is a permanent House. It is never dissolved, and one-third of its members retire every second year. The Chairman brings continuity to a House that reinvents itself gradually rather than all at once.

What presiding actually involves

• Opening and adjourning sittings, and deciding when the House meets within the framework of the rules.
• Calling members to speak and deciding the order of business on the floor.
• Admitting or disallowing notices, motions and questions, subject to the rules.
• Nominating members to parliamentary committees and chairing some important ones.
• Overseeing the Rajya Sabha Secretariat, which functions under the Chairman’s authority.

Because the Vice-President is not a sitting member of the Rajya Sabha, the Chairman is expected to be strictly non-partisan. Members from every party, and the twelve nominated members, look to the Chair for impartial rulings.

Acting as President: A Constitutional Safety Net

The second great function of the Vice-President is to ensure India is never without a head of state. Under Article 65, when the President’s office falls vacant because of death, resignation, removal or any other reason, the Vice-President acts as President until a new President is elected and takes office. Article 62 requires that election to be completed as soon as possible, and in any case within six months of the vacancy, so the Vice-President’s stint as acting President cannot legitimately run beyond that window.

The same article also covers temporary situations. If the President is absent, ill or otherwise unable to discharge the functions of office, the Vice-President discharges them until the President resumes duty.

Rules for the acting period

• While acting as President, the Vice-President has all the powers, immunities and privileges of the President.
• The Vice-President does not perform the duties of Chairman of the Rajya Sabha during this time, and the Deputy Chairman takes over in the House.
• The Vice-President does not draw the Chairman’s salary while acting, but receives the President’s emoluments instead.
• If both offices are ever vacant at the same time, Parliament has made law so that the Chief Justice of India, or the next senior-most judge available, discharges the President’s functions.

Two occasions from history illustrate the safety net at work. After the death of President Zakir Husain in 1969, then Vice-President V. V. Giri acted as President. After the death of President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed in 1977, Vice-President B. D. Jatti did so.

How the Vice-President Is Elected

Article 66 lays down that the Vice-President is elected by an electoral college consisting of the members of both Houses of Parliament. That means the elected and nominated members of the Rajya Sabha and the members of the Lok Sabha. State legislators play no part, which is a key contrast with the Presidential election.

The poll is held in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote, and voting is by secret ballot. The Presidential and Vice-Presidential Elections Act, 1952, and the rules framed under it supply the detailed procedure, and the Election Commission of India conducts the poll.

Nomination

A candidate must be proposed by at least twenty members of the electoral college and seconded by at least twenty others, and must make a security deposit. These requirements exist to discourage frivolous candidatures for a high constitutional post.

How votes are counted

Every member of the electoral college has one vote, and every vote carries equal value. There is no complicated weightage formula of the kind used for the President’s election. Voters mark their preferences in order, 1, 2, 3 and so on, against the names of candidates. The count first checks whether any candidate has crossed the quota, which is a little more than half of the valid votes. If nobody has, the candidate with the fewest first preferences is eliminated and those ballots are transferred to the next preference indicated. The process repeats until one candidate crosses the quota.

Political parties cannot issue a binding whip in the way they do for votes inside the House, because the ballot is secret and the vote is cast as an individual elector.

Vice-Presidential Election vs Presidential Election

Although both elections use the single transferable vote and secret ballot, the two electoral colleges differ in an important way. The table below sets out the main contrasts.

The result is that the Vice-President is chosen by a purely parliamentary body, while the President is chosen by a college that reflects both the Union and the states. It is also why the Vice-President can theoretically come from a different political camp than the President.

Qualifications and Eligibility

Article 66 lists the conditions a person must satisfy to stand for election as Vice-President.

• The person must be a citizen of India.
• The person must have completed 35 years of age.
• The person must be qualified for election as a member of the Rajya Sabha.
• The person must not hold any office of profit under the Government of India, any State government, or any local or other authority subject to their control.

The Constitution clarifies that holding the office of President, Vice-President, Governor of a state, or Minister of the Union or of a state does not count as an office of profit for this purpose. A sitting member of Parliament or of a state legislature can contest; if elected, the person is deemed to have vacated the earlier seat from the date of entering the office of Vice-President.

The requirement of qualification for the Rajya Sabha means the usual disqualifications, such as unsound mind, insolvency or foreign citizenship, apply here too. Any question about these matters is settled under Article 71.

Settling disputes under Article 71

Any doubt or dispute about the election of a Vice-President is inquired into and decided only by the Supreme Court of India, and its decision is final. An election cannot be challenged merely because some seats in the electoral college were vacant at the time of voting.

Article 71 also protects past actions. If the Supreme Court declares the election of a Vice-President void, all acts done by that person in the exercise and performance of the powers and duties of the office before the date of the decision remain valid. This prevents legal chaos after a ruling.

Term, Resignation and Removal

Term of five years

Under Article 67, the Vice-President holds office for five years from the date of entering it. There is no limit on the number of terms. The Vice-President continues in office even after the term ends until a successor enters office, so the seat is never empty. An election to replace an outgoing Vice-President is meant to be completed before the term expires.

Filling a mid-term vacancy

If the office falls vacant through death, resignation or removal, the election must be held as soon as possible. Article 68 provides that the person elected in such a vacancy serves a fresh full five-year term, not merely the unexpired portion of the predecessor’s term. This differs from what some other systems do.

Resignation

The Vice-President resigns by writing to the President. Once the resignation takes effect, the office falls vacant and the process for a fresh election begins. Acceptance by the President is not a condition laid down in the Constitution.

Removal is not “impeachment”

The President can be impeached under Article 61 by a formal process that involves both Houses and a charge of violating the Constitution. The Vice-President’s removal is different and simpler. A resolution must be moved in the Rajya Sabha after at least fourteen days’ notice, and it must be passed by an effective majority, meaning a majority of all the then members of the House. The Lok Sabha must then agree to the resolution by an ordinary majority. No grounds are specified in the Constitution, and no Vice-President has ever been removed this way.

Powers and Functions as Chairman of the Rajya Sabha

The Vice-President’s powers all flow from the chair of the Rajya Sabha, as set out in the Constitution and the House’s Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business.

Maintaining order and deciding points of order

The Chairman is responsible for the orderly conduct of proceedings. When a member raises a point of order, that is, an objection that the rules or the Constitution are not being followed, the Chairman hears it and gives a ruling, which is final within the House. The Chair may direct a member to stop speaking, ask a member to withdraw from the House for the day for grossly disorderly conduct, or, under the rules, suspend a member for a specified period.

Other significant powers

• Deciding, under the Tenth Schedule, whether a Rajya Sabha member should be disqualified on grounds of defection. Such decisions are subject to judicial review.
• Chairing important committees, such as the Business Advisory Committee, the Rules Committee and the General Purposes Committee.
• Deciding on the admissibility of notices, questions and resolutions.
• Representing the House in its relations with the President, the Government and outside bodies.

The Chairman’s vote: a common misconception

It is often said that the Chairman has no vote at all because the Vice-President is not a member of the Rajya Sabha. The truth is more precise. Article 100 provides that the Chairman does not vote in the first instance, meaning no ordinary vote on a motion or Bill, but does exercise a casting vote if the votes are equally divided. The Vice-President therefore has no original vote but does hold a tie-breaker.

There is one notable exception. When a resolution to remove the Vice-President is under consideration, the Chairman may attend and speak but cannot preside and cannot vote at all, not even in a tie (Article 92).

Two other limits are worth noting. The Vice-President does not preside over a joint sitting of the two Houses; that role belongs to the Speaker of the Lok Sabha. And only the Speaker, not the Chairman, certifies whether a Bill is a Money Bill.

Vice-President vs Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha

Many readers confuse the two posts. The Vice-President is an office of the whole Union, elected by Parliament. The Deputy Chairman is an office inside the House, chosen by Rajya Sabha members from among themselves under Article 89.

The Deputy Chairman steps in whenever the Vice-President is absent, when the office of Vice-President is vacant, or when the Vice-President is acting as President. The House also maintains a Panel of Vice-Chairmen, members nominated by the Chairman who can preside in the absence of both.

The First Vice-President and Those Who Followed

Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was India’s first Vice-President. A renowned philosopher and academic, he took office in 1952 when the Rajya Sabha itself was first constituted, and he served two terms until 1962. He then became the second President of India. His birthday, 5 September, is celebrated across the country as Teachers’ Day.

Radhakrishnan set a pattern. The Vice-Presidency has often been seen as a step towards the highest office, though it is not a formal succession ladder. Several Vice-Presidents have gone on to become President, as the table shows.

The Vice-President’s role in the House and the ceremonial duties, such as representing the country abroad or holding ex-officio positions in certain educational and cultural institutions, mean the office attracts eminent scholars, jurists and parliamentarians.

Comparing the Indian and American Vice-Presidents

The idea of a Vice-President who presides over the upper House came to India from the United States, but the Indian Constitution reshaped it considerably. The two offices share a name and a chamber-presiding duty, and differ in almost everything else.

The key contrast is succession. In the United States, a President’s death elevates the Vice-President into the job for good. In India, the Vice-President is only a caretaker, and the country must elect a new President within six months. Because the Indian Vice-President is chosen separately, there is no guarantee that the two officials share the same politics.

Conclusion

The Vice-President of India may not wield executive power, but the office anchors two crucial constitutional functions: the fair running of the Rajya Sabha and the continuity of the head of state. Understanding how the Vice-President is elected, why the vote is limited to Parliament, how the casting vote works and how removal differs from Presidential impeachment gives a clear window into the balance the Constitution strikes between independence and accountability.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is the Vice-President of India and what does the office do?

The Vice-President is the second-highest constitutional authority in India, established under Articles 63 to 71. The main duty is to act as ex-officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. The Vice-President also acts as President when the presidential office falls vacant or the President is unable to discharge duties.

How is the Vice-President elected?

The election is conducted by the Election Commission through an electoral college made up of all members of both Houses of Parliament, including nominated members. It uses proportional representation by single transferable vote and a secret ballot. Unlike the Presidential election, state legislators do not vote.

Does the Vice-President have a vote in the Rajya Sabha?

Not in the first instance. Since the Vice-President is not a member of the Rajya Sabha, there is no ordinary vote, but Article 100 gives the Chairman a casting vote if the House is equally divided. During a removal motion against the Vice-President, no vote at all is allowed.

Can the Vice-President be impeached?

There is no formal impeachment process as there is for the President. The Vice-President can be removed by a resolution of the Rajya Sabha passed by an effective majority of all its then members and agreed to by the Lok Sabha, after fourteen days’ notice. No Vice-President has been removed in this way.

What is the difference between the Vice-President and the Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha?

The Vice-President is elected by Parliament as a whole and is the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha but not a member of it. The Deputy Chairman is a member of the Rajya Sabha, chosen by the House from among its own members, and presides only when the Chairman is absent or the office is vacant.

Who was the first Vice-President of India?

Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was the first Vice-President, serving from 1952 to 1962 across two terms. He later became the second President of India, and his birthday on 5 September is observed as Teachers’ Day.

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