Read the following statements carefully:
I. The Council of Ministers is collectively responsible to the Lok Sabha.
II. According to the principle the Council of Ministers is the executive committee of the Parliament.
The correct statement is/are:

Question

Read the following statements carefully: 
I. The Council of Ministers is collectively responsible to the Lok Sabha. 
II. According to the principle the Council of Ministers is the executive committee of the Parliament. 
The correct statement is/are:

Accepted Answer

The correct option is 3:

Both I and II are correct, meaning the Council of Ministers is collectively responsible to the Lok Sabha (Statement I), and it functions as the executive committee of the Parliament (Statement II). This reflects the core essence of India's parliamentary system of government, which is based on the Westminster model.

**Statement I: The Council of Ministers is collectively responsible to the Lok Sabha.** This is a constitutional mandate, explicitly stated in Article 75(3) of the Indian Constitution. Collective responsibility means that the entire Council of Ministers (CoM) must stand or fall together. When a decision is taken, every Minister is bound to support it, both inside and outside the Parliament, even if they disagree privately. If the Lok Sabha passes a Vote of No-Confidence against the Council of Ministers, the entire council, including the Prime Minister, must resign. This principle ensures the government’s coherence and accountability to the directly elected House of the People, thus establishing Lok Sabha's supremacy in holding the executive accountable.

**Statement II: According to the principle the Council of Ministers is the executive committee of the Parliament.** This statement captures the functional relationship between the executive and the legislature in a parliamentary system. The Council of Ministers is drawn from the Parliament, particularly the majority party in the Lok Sabha. Because the Ministers are members of and responsible to the Parliament, the CoM essentially acts as the primary executive body that steers the legislative agenda, controls financial matters, and executes the laws passed by the Parliament. The Parliament, in turn, exercises control over this committee (the CoM) through mechanisms like questions, debates, and, ultimately, the no-confidence motion. Therefore, calling the Council of Ministers the "executive committee of the Parliament" is an accurate conceptual description of how the two organs are fused and function together under the parliamentary system.

The incorrect option is 1:
Statement I is correct, but Statement II is incorrect. This is wrong because Statement II provides a fundamental, descriptive principle of the parliamentary form of government. The Council of Ministers is not an independent body but a committee derived from and accountable to the Parliament (specifically the Lok Sabha). If the Council of Ministers were not seen as the 'executive committee of the Parliament', it would suggest a rigid separation of powers, characteristic of a presidential system, which is not the case in India. The very nature of collective responsibility underscores this close, executive committee-like relationship with the legislature.

The incorrect option is 2:
Statement II is correct, but Statement I is incorrect. This option incorrectly rejects the explicit constitutional provision regarding collective responsibility. Statement I, that the Council of Ministers is collectively responsible to the Lok Sabha, is a direct quote of the constitutional principle laid down in Article 75(3). This responsibility is the constitutional mechanism that makes the Council of Ministers accountable and subordinate to the people’s representatives. Therefore, Statement I cannot be deemed incorrect.

The incorrect option is 4:
Both I and II are incorrect. This is false because both statements accurately define essential features of the Indian political system. Declaring Statement I incorrect would mean rejecting Article 75(3) of the Constitution. Declaring Statement II incorrect would mean misunderstanding the fundamental nature of the relationship between the executive and legislature in a parliamentary democracy, where the executive branch is drawn from and remains dependent upon the confidence of the legislature.