Indian Constitution: History, Features, Amendments and Basic Structure

What the official syllabus says

HCS Main Written Examination, Paper IV: General Studies-II:

• Indian Constitution-historical underpinnings, evolution, features, amendments, significant provisions and basic structure.

Topics in detail

Historical underpinnings

• Company rule: Regulating Act, 1773; Pitt's India Act, 1784; Charter Acts of 1813, 1833 and 1853
• Crown rule: Government of India Act, 1858; Indian Councils Acts of 1861, 1892 and 1909 (separate electorates)
• Government of India Act, 1919: dyarchy in the provinces, bicameral central legislature
• Simon Commission (1927), the Nehru Report (1928) and the Round Table Conferences
• Government of India Act, 1935: provincial autonomy, proposed federation, three lists, Federal Court; its imprint on the Constitution
• Cripps Mission (1942), Cabinet Mission Plan (1946) and the Indian Independence Act, 1947

Making of the Constitution

• Constituent Assembly: composition, first sitting on 9 December 1946, Objectives Resolution (13 December 1946)
• Drafting Committee under Dr B. R. Ambedkar; major committees of the Assembly
• Adoption on 26 November 1949 and commencement on 26 January 1950
• Borrowed features: United Kingdom (parliamentary system, rule of law), United States (fundamental rights, judicial review), Ireland (Directive Principles), Canada (federation with a strong Centre), Australia (Concurrent List), Weimar Germany (suspension of rights in emergency)

Salient features and significant provisions

• Preamble: sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic; justice, liberty, equality, fraternity; the words added in 1976
• Parliamentary form of government; federal system with unitary features; single citizenship
• Fundamental Rights (Part III, Articles 12–35): equality, freedoms, against exploitation, religion, cultural and educational rights, constitutional remedies (Article 32)
• Directive Principles of State Policy (Part IV, Articles 36–51) and their relation with Fundamental Rights
• Fundamental Duties (Article 51A), added by the 42nd Amendment, 1976
• Citizenship (Articles 5–11) and the Citizenship Act, 1955
• Independent judiciary, universal adult franchise, emergency provisions (Articles 352, 356 and 360)
• Schedules of the Constitution and what each contains

Amendments

• Article 368: the three ways of amending the Constitution; ratification by States
• First Amendment (1951): Ninth Schedule; Seventh Amendment (1956): reorganisation of States
• 42nd (1976) and 44th (1978) Amendments: what was changed and what was restored
• 52nd (1985): anti-defection law (Tenth Schedule); 61st (1988): voting age reduced to 18
• 73rd and 74th (1992): panchayats and municipalities; 86th (2002): right to education (Article 21A)
• 91st (2003): size of the Council of Ministers; 97th (2011): co-operative societies
• 101st (2016): Goods and Services Tax; 102nd (2018): National Commission for Backward Classes; 103rd (2019): reservation for economically weaker sections
• 105th (2021): States' power to identify socially and educationally backward classes; 106th (2023): reservation of seats for women in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies

Basic structure doctrine

• Early cases: Shankari Prasad (1951), Sajjan Singh (1965), Golak Nath (1967)
• Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala (1973): Parliament cannot alter the basic structure
• Indira Nehru Gandhi v. Raj Narain (1975), Minerva Mills (1980), Waman Rao (1981)
• I. R. Coelho (2007): laws in the Ninth Schedule open to review
• Elements held to be basic: supremacy of the Constitution, rule of law, judicial review, federalism, secularism, free and fair elections, separation of powers
• NJAC judgment (2015): the 99th Amendment struck down on judicial independence

Living issues

• Article 370: its abrogation in 2019 and the Supreme Court's judgment of 2023
• Uniform civil code (Article 44) and personal laws
• Expanding meaning of Article 21: privacy (Puttaswamy, 2017), dignity, livelihood, clean environment
• Balance between Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles; constitutional morality

Overlaps

Indian Polity is also part of the Preliminary General Studies paper. The making of the Constitution overlaps with post-independence consolidation in General Studies I.