AMENDMENT OF INDIAN CONSTITUTION

Amendment Of Indian Constitution

Law is for the people. So when society changes the law also changes. Law needs to be changed with the change in society for the betterment of the people. Our Indian Constitution is a combination of flexibility and rigidity. Whenever there is a need for amendments, can it be made in the constitution?

There is a reason why our founding fathers created a constitution that is flexible as it is today. This will ensure that the law grows with the nation. Accordingly, under Article 368, the powers of the Parliament to correct the constitution are unlimited with respect to areas of the constitution they wish to change.

Amendment Of Indian Constitution Under Article 368

Article 368 sets out the procedures by which Parliament can amend the Constitution. The procedure is as follows- 

1. The bill will be introduced in both Houses of Parliament. 
2. The bill must be adopted by an absolute majority (whether vacant or absent) and at least two-thirds of those who are present and voting. If there is a disagreement between the two houses, no joint meeting is scheduled. 
3. After receiving the majority, the bill is submitted to the president, who approves it. 

If the provision referred to in Article 368 is amended, it must be ratified by at least half of the country. Ratification should be through a decision passed by the state legislature. However, this must be passed before the revised law is submitted to the President for approval.

Basic Structure Of Constitution

According to the Constitution of India, laws can be made within the jurisdiction of Parliament and State Legislatures. However, the power to change the components is not with legislative assemblies but only with parliament. However, the power of this parliament is not absolute. 

The Supreme Court has the power to point to the law that is unconstitutional. According to the basic structural document, changes attempting to change the basic structure of the configuration are invalid. The word basic structure is not mentioned anywhere in the Indian Constitution; the idea is to maintain the democratic nature of India and protect people’s rights and freedoms. This principle helps protect and maintain the spirit of constitutional principles.

The Plaintiff, Swami Kesavananda Bharati, was the head of Edneer Matt, a Hindu monastery in Kerala. He challenged the two-state land reform legislation enacted by the Kerala government that seeks to limit the control of his property. His basic rights are Article 25 (Freedom and Occupation of Religion, Practice and Dissemination of Religion), Article 26 (Freedom of Religion), Article 14 (Equality under the Law), Article 19 (1) (F) (Omitted property rights) and Article 31 (Unlimited private property rights) were infringed. 

The case was judged by the bench of 13 judges. It became one of the most important cases in India and laid the foundation for the basic structure of the Constitution. In that case, they considered the constitutionality of the amendments to Articles 24, 25 and 29.

The Doctrine of Basic Structure was formulated to answer this question. When they understood that the Parliament’s right to amend the constitution was unfettered in terms of the amount of the constitution they wanted to change, they also stated that certain aspects of the constitution should be left alone. The Indian constitution, according to Hedge.J and Mukherjee.J, is a social document founded on social philosophy rather than a political document. 

The constitution, like any philosophy, has some fundamental aspects that should not be changed. Because they were not thorough, the majority bench left it up to the courts to determine what the core features of the constitution were.

The following are the court’s principal conclusions:

1. There is a distinction to be made between amendments and ordinary statutes.
2. Overruled in Golak Nath v. State of Punjab, the court stated that Parliament’s ability to amend is limited. It can’t go against the Constitution’s Basic Structure.
3. They defined the scope of amendment under Article 368 and stated that it was limited and that no major changes could be made.
4. Any section of the constitution, including fundamental rights, can be amended by parliament, according to the document. But, once again, they were limited by the fact that they couldn’t change the core framework.
5. The court listed “Free and Fair Elections” and the “Federal Structure of the Nations” as examples of basic structures they could find. They also emphasised that the list was not exhaustive and that the courts would have to assess whether or not it was a basic framework.
6. The 24th Amendment was upheld by the court, whereas the second half of the 25th Amendment was struck down. The 25th Amendment, on the other hand, was to be subjected to two conditions:

• The term ‘amount’ should not simply refer to compensation; it should also refer to the property’s current market value.
• The portion prohibiting judicial review was knocked down because “no law may prevent judicial inquiry.”

Amendment Of Indian Constitution In The Light Of Fundamental Rights

The fundamental rights enshrined in Part III of the constitution form the bedrock of human rights in this country. The United States’ judiciary has repeatedly demonstrated in historic judgments that an individual’s or a private organization’s fundamental right cannot be interfered with. These rights have been given precedence over other portions of the constitution in various situations, and they might be considered an incredibly significant aspect of it.

But, given the parliament’s capacity to alter the constitution, could they also amend the constitution’s fundamental rights? And do they make up the foundations of the constitution? 

In the case of Sajjan Singh v. State of Rajasthan, 1965, Fundamental rights might be altered in this case as long as they were indirect, incidental, or inconsequential to the power granted by Provision 226, the article under which the High Court gained its powers.

The provisions of Article 336 do not apply if the effect of the Act on the powers of Article 226 is indirect, incidental, or negligible. The core and substance of the Act must be examined in order to comprehend the Act’s implications.

The Act’s main purpose is to alter fundamental rights in order to remove roadblocks to the implementation of socio economic programmes. As a result, its impacts on the powers of 266 are incidental and negligible, and the processes are not invoked under Article 336.

Conclusion

We looked at the amendment to the constitution in this article. We discovered that there is a thing called the Basic Structure of the Constitution, and that violating it is against the fundamental principles of justice. The preamble was once thought to be the basic structure of the constitution, but later it was decided that other components of the constitution, such as judicial review, might also be considered to be part of the Basic Structure of the Constitution.