News Mania / Piyal Chatterjee / 21st October 2024
Supreme Court stated today that the terms “socialist” and “secular” are part of the fundamental framework of the Constitution and that the courts have emphasized this in several rulings. The court made the comments at the hearing of a Public Interest Litigation that sought to have the words removed from the Constitution’s Preamble. Subramanian Swamy, a former MP and BJP leader, is one of the petitioners. Petitioner and counsel Vishnu Shankar Jain argued before the bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and PV Sanjay Kumar that Parliament never discussed the 1976 42nd Amendment to the Constitution, which brought about these modifications.
Justice Khanna responded that the matter has been debated at length. “Please see Mr Jain, the words have varied interpretation. Both words have different interpretations today. Even our courts have declared them, time and again, as part of the basic structure (of the Constitution),” he said.
“Socialism can also mean there has to be fair opportunity for all, the concept of equality. Let’s not take it in the Western concept. It can have some different meaning as well. Same with the word secularism,” he added.
Advocate Ashwini Upadhyay, also a petitioner, referred to the Emergency imposed by the Indira Gandhi government during which this amendment was affected. “I don’t want to say much on what Justice HR Khanna did and saved us,” Mr Upadhyay said.
The Supreme Court’s 1976 ruling that a person’s protection against being wrongfully detained could be suspended in the public interest was cited. In the Constitution bench’s 4-1 ruling, Justice HR Khanna was the only one to disagree. The nephew of Justice HR Khanna is Justice Sanjiv Khanna.
Responding to the lawyers’ arguments, Justice Khanna asked, “You don’t want India to be secular?”
Advocate Jain responded, “We are not saying India is not secular. We are challenging this amendment.”
“If one looks at the right to equality and the word ‘fraternity’ used in (the) Constitution as well as the rights under Part III, there is a clear indication that secular has been held as the core feature of (the) Constitution. I can cite cases for you. When secularism was debated, there was only the French model. The Supreme Court has struck down statutes that go against secularism. You may look at Article 25. For socialism, we have not followed the Western concept and we are happy on it,” Justice Khanna said.
Mr Jain said Dr BR Ambedkar opined that the introduction of the word ‘socialism’ would curtail liberty, Justice Khanna asked, “Has liberty been curtailed? Tell me?”
Justice Khanna asked the petitioners to submit relevant documents so it could examine them. The bench refused to issue notices and said the matter would be listed next on November 18.
