Constitutional experts are generally of the view that prima facie the President has to act on the advice of the Union Cabinet. This being the Constitutional position, President K R Narayanan was perhaps constrained not to issue a ``directive'' to the government to convene a session of the Rajya Sabha. Instead, he has limited himself to merely forwarding memorandums he received from various quarters seeking a session of the Upper House to the government.

``This at best is in the nature of a suggestion from the President to the Government. But Narayanan was certainly not wrong in espousing the view that a Rajya Sabha session is called for at this critical juncture. In fact, it was his duty to do so,'' said oneexpert.

According to another expert, Rajeev Dhawan, the decision to convene a session of the Upper House in the present circumstances is not merely a Constitutional one but also a political one. ``The President though has the the general powers to warn, advise and encourage the executive,'' he said.

According to him, if the government was not heeding to the suggestion of the President it should come forward with ``strong, cogent reasons'' to reject the idea.

Aware of the ``grey area'' in the Constitution, the Vajpayee government has consistently stalled all demands from the Congress, the Left and other Opposition parties to convene a session of the Upper House where the ruling BJP-led coalition is in a hopeless minority. It realises that these parties would utilise the opportunity of the session to put it on the mat for the intelligence agencies' failure to detect intrusions from across the Line of Control in the Kargil sector.

The government also hit upon the idea of calling a meeting of all partiesto discuss the Kargil conflict, followed by Wednesday's conference of Chief Ministers. Both these forums, the Opposition argued, could not be a substitute for a session of the Upper House.