[3] The country is being legislated by a National Democratic Alliance-led legislature (a coalition of the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies) since 2014.

[5][need quotation to verify] The government, seated in New Delhi, has three primary branches: the legislative, the executive and the judiciary, whose powers are vested in bicameral Parliament of India,[6] Union Council of Ministers (headed by prime minister),[7] and the Supreme Court of India[8] respectively, with a President as head of state.

After an election, the President generally selects as Prime Minister the leader of the party or alliance most likely to command the confidence of the majority of the Lok Sabha.

[a] The first seeds of responsible government during British colonial rule in India were sown by the Indian Councils Act 1909, commonly known as the Morley-Minto reforms.

The Act introduced elections to the Imperial Legislative Council (then the unicameral Legislature for British India).

[12] Between midnight on 15 August 1947 and 26 January 1950, India was an independent, self-governing dominion of the Commonwealth of Nations, a constitutional monarchy with a Prime Minister and a Governor-General as the viceregal representative of the head of state, George VI.

Even though much remains to be done, especially in regard to eradicating poverty and securing effective structures of governance, India's achievements since independence in sustaining freedom and democracy have been singular among the world's new nations.

[16] The Union government is mainly composed of the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary, and powers are vested by the constitution in the council of ministers, parliament, and the supreme court, respectively.

The legal system as applicable to the Union and individual state governments is based on the English common and Statutory Law.

[23] The parliament does not have complete control and sovereignty, as its laws are subject to judicial review by the Supreme Court.

Thus, in practice, the Council of Ministers cannot be dismissed as long as it holds the support of a majority in the Lok Sabha.

These high officials include the governors of the 28 states; the chief justice; other judges of the supreme court and high courts on the advice of other judges; the attorney general; the comptroller and auditor general; the chief election commissioner and other election commissioners; the chairman and members of the Union Public Service Commission; the officers of the All India Services (IAS, IFoS and IPS) and Central Civil Services in group 'A'; officers of the Indian Armed Forces; and the ambassadors and high commissioners to other countries on the recommendations of the Council of Ministers, among others.

[31] The president of India can grant a pardon to or reduce the sentence of a convicted person once, particularly in cases involving the punishment of death.

The decisions involving pardoning and other rights by the president are independent of the opinion of the prime minister or the Lok Sabha majority.

[33] The vice president is elected indirectly by members of an electoral college consisting of the members of both the houses of the parliament following the system of proportional representation employing the single transferable vote and the voting is by secret ballot conducted by the election commission.

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.

The cabinet secretary (IAST: Maṃtrimaṇḍala Saciva) is the top-most executive official and senior-most civil servant of the Government of India.

India's independent union judicial system began under the British, and its concepts and procedures resemble those of Anglo-Saxon countries.

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.

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.

In addition, Article 32 of the constitution gives an extensive original jurisdiction to the supreme court concerning enforcing fundamental rights.

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.

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

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

The Finance minister of India usually presents the annual union budget in the parliament on the last working 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.

In 2009, several ministers are accused of corruption and nearly a quarter of the 543 elected members of parliament had been charged with crimes, including murder.

[58] Many of the biggest scandals since 2010 have involved high-level government officials, including cabinet ministers and chief ministers, such as the 2010 Commonwealth Games scam (₹700 billion (equivalent to ₹1.6 trillion or US$18 billion in 2023)), the Adarsh Housing Society scam, the Coal Mining Scam (₹1.86 trillion (equivalent to ₹4.2 trillion or US$48 billion in 2023)), the mining scandal in Karnataka and the cash-for-votes scandal.