The Supreme Court on Friday wondered if the Preamble of the Indian Constitution could have been amended keeping the date of adoption November 26, 1949 intact.
A two-judge bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta was hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) by former Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy who questioned the legality of the insertion of the two words by 42nd Amendment in 1976.
The two-judge bench posed the question to Swamy and lawyer Vishnu Shankar Jain, who have sought deletion of the words “Socialist” and “Secular” from the preamble.
During the hearing, Justice Datta said, “For the academic purpose, can a Preamble that has the date mentioned, be changed without altering the date of adoption. Otherwise, yes the Preamble can be amended. There is no problem with that.”
“That’s precisely the question in the matter.” Justice Datta further said, “this is perhaps the only Preamble I have seen which comes with a date. We give this Constitution to us on so and so date…originally these two words (Socialist and Secular) were not there.”
Swamy said that the 42nd Amendment Act was passed during the Emergency (1975-77).
Justice Khanna said that the case files were received early in the morning and the judges didn’t go through them due to limited time.
The bench said that the matter required detailed discussion and posted the hearing on the two petitions to April 29.
In 2022, the apex court had tagged Swamy’s plea with other pending plea which was filed by Balram Singh.
The words ‘Socialist’ and ‘Secular’ were inserted in the Preamble of the Constitution under the 42nd Constitutional amendment which moved by the Indira Gandhi-led Congress government in 1976. The Amendment changed the description of India in the Preamble from a “sovereign, democratic republic” to a “sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic.”
Swamy in his plea has contended that Preamble cannot be altered, varied, or repealed.