Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar, on Thursday, asserted that all institutions in India are robust and are working with checks and balances.

“I firmly believe, and that is the ground reality, that all institutions in our country are robust. Our institutions are working with checks and balances, our institutions have earned laurels,” he said in his address at Sansad TV@3 Conclave in Parliament House.

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Dhankhar said the media is rightly the fourth pillar of democracy. The most populous democracy, the oldest democracy, the mother of democracy, the most vibrant democracy wants the media to be in pace with the development, he said.

“We have become chronic critics, we have developed an indigestible mechanism that yes this is being done in this regime. Therefore, it has to be criticised. Criticism and criticism but criticism as a part of policy is antithetical to democratic values. There are issues in the country, I am alive to them. The Institutions in the country have to operate within their area- The judiciary,
the executive, the legislature,” he said.

“I quite often say, Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha cannot script judgements of the Supreme Court, it is their job. Similarly, no agency other than Parliament can script laws. That is our domain, executive governance is the job of the government, executive governance is exclusive to the government because the government is accountable,” he said.

Dhankhar said the government first is responsible to the legislature. If the government tips in performing executive duties, there is a sense of accountability and then after five years or earlier, the people of the country take a call on how they have performed in the executive domain.

“Executive power is controlled by someone else, the very thought of it is unsettling to me. How can the executive power of the executive be taken over by someone,” he said.

“There can be no justifiable premise for it. Each institution has to act within its domain, optimally perform, keeping one thing in view the nation at large. The Constitution has given limitations, It has defined the role of every Institution. If one institution steps into the role of another institution at least order will suffer,” the Vice-President said.

“When we find perceptionally, people discussing that yes, executive actions are being performed beyond the executive, there needs to be a healthy debate, a debate amongst parliamentarians on television channels, by the academia, by the professors, so that as a nation we come out stronger,” he said.