The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a batch of petitions seeking the removal of words "secular”, “socialist” and “integrity” from the Preamble of the Constitution.
These words were inserted into the Preamble by the Indira Gandhi government in 1976 through a Constitutional amendment.
"We do not find any legitimate cause or justification for challenging this Constitutional amendment after nearly 44 years,” said a bench of Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar.
The petition was filed by former Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy and lawyers Ashwini Updhayay, Balram Singh and Karunesh Kumar Shukla who challenged the amendment.
"The writ petitions do not need further deliberation and adjudication. The amending power of Parliament over the Constitution extends to Preamble,” the CJI said.
Noting that the first petition in this case was filed in 2020, forty-four years after the Constitutional amendment, the court said the delay rendered the petitions questionable.
"This stems from the fact that these terms have achieved widespread acceptance, with their meanings understood by 'We, the people of India' without any semblance of doubt. The additions to the Preamble have not restricted or impeded legislations or policies pursued by elected governments, provided such actions did not infringe upon fundamental and constitutional rights or the basic structure of the Constitution," the bench said.
The top court clarified that parliament has the power to amend the Constitution and this power is not curtailed by the date of its adoption.
“The date of the adoption of the Constitution would not curtail the government's power under Article 368 and moreover this is not under challenge,” it said.
Swamy in his petition argued that the insertion of the words “secular” and “socialist” conflicted with the original Preamble adopted in 1949. He further claimed that the Constitutional amendment brought in by the Indira Gandhi government violated the basic structure doctrine established in the Kesavananda Bharati case (1973), which prohibits Parliament from altering the Constitution's essential features.