Council of States — Reformed Executive Federal Body

The Inter-State Council under Article 263 is reconstituted as the Council of States — a binding federal executive body. Composition: all Chief Ministers plus the Prime Minister as Chair, with an independent permanent secretariat.

Decision rule: 60/40 double majority. Binding decisions on defined federal executive matters require more than 60% of states by count AND more than 40% of national population simultaneously. This prevents Hindi-belt population majority from overriding smaller states while preventing small-state coalitions from blocking large-state interests. The mechanism is borrowed from the EU Council, which has run on double-majority rules across 27 deeply diverse member states since 2014.

Subjects requiring Council approval: Finance Commission terms of reference; national water resource allocation; spectrum and natural resource allocation; inter-state infrastructure with asymmetric impact.

Explicitly excluded: all defence and security matters; public health emergency declarations in first 90 days; disaster relief operations in first 90 days; all GST Council decisions.