This book is a study of the president of India's authority to enact legislation (or ordinances) at the national level without involving parliament.

Shubhankar Dam is an Assistant Professor of Law at Singapore Management University School of Law. He graduated from the University of Oxford (BCL) as a Felix Scholar, and from Harvard Law School (LLM) as a Harvard University Dana Scholar. He has held visiting positions in universities and research institutions in Australia, India, and Germany. His research interests are in the fields of law and governance in India and comparative constitutional law, and he has published in journals from Australia, India, The Netherlands, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Part I. Origins and Practice: 1. The transplant effect: early origins of ordinances in England and India; 2. Surrogate legislation: an empirical account of ordinances, 1952-2009; Part II. Law and Interpretation: 3. Negotiating the text: ordinances, Article 123, and the interpretative deficit; 4. Reading minds: presidential satisfaction and judicial review of ordinances; 5. The power of no: presidents, cabinets, and the making of ordinances.