Ordinance-making power and re-promulgation limits

Re-promulgation transforms an emergency power into a permanent substitute for legislating, a fraud on the Constitution, as Krishna Kumar Singh (2017) held. Articles 123 and 213 let the President and a Governor promulgate an ordinance with the force of an Act when the House is not in session and immediate action is needed. The instrument is temporary by design: it must be laid before the legislature on reassembly and lapses six weeks later unless enacted. D.C. Wadhwa (1987) struck down Bihar's practice of re-promulgating ordinances indefinitely. The seven-judge bench in Krishna Kumar Singh (2017) further held that lapsed ordinances cannot create enduring rights.