When was the word ‘Armed Rebellion’ added to the Constitution to declare a National Emergency ?

Question

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Correct — option (1), the 44th Constitution Amendment Act. Article 352 as it was originally enacted allowed the President to proclaim a national emergency if he was satisfied that the security of India or of any part of it was threatened by war, by external aggression or by internal disturbance. It was on the third of those grounds, internal disturbance, that the emergency of June 1975 was proclaimed, and the twenty-one months that followed — with elections postponed, opposition leaders detained, the press censored and Fundamental Rights suspended — produced a settled conviction that the ground was too vague to be safe. When the Janata government came to power it enacted the Constitution (Forty-fourth Amendment) Act, 1978, and the substitution of 'armed rebellion' for 'internal disturbance' in Article 352 is that Act's best-known single change; the amendments to Article 352 took effect on 20 June 1979. The point of the change is the narrowing. 'Internal disturbance' could be read to cover any serious breakdown of public order, or indeed a political agitation, whereas 'armed rebellion' requires an actual armed uprising against the authority of the State, a far higher and more objective threshold. The same amendment surrounded the power with several further safeguards, and they belong together in a candidate's memory. A Proclamation may now be issued only on the written recommendation of the Cabinet, so that it can no longer rest on the Prime Minister's advice alone. It must be approved by both Houses of Parliament within one month instead of the two months formerly allowed, and by a special majority — a majority of the total membership of each House and not less than two-thirds of the members present and voting. Once approved it continues for six months at a time and needs fresh approval to be extended. The Lok Sabha was given the power to require the revocation of a Proclamation by passing a resolution to that effect by a simple majority, and if one-tenth of its members give notice a special sitting must be held within fourteen days to consider such a resolution. Article 358, which suspends the freedoms of Article 19 during an emergency, was confined to emergencies proclaimed on the ground of war or external aggression, and Article 359 was amended so that the right to move a court for the enforcement of Articles 20 and 21 can never be suspended. The Forty-fourth Amendment also deleted a clause inserted by an earlier amendment that had made the President's satisfaction final and beyond challenge in any court, and it removed the right to property from the Fundamental Rights, placing it in Article 300A. Only three national emergencies have ever been proclaimed — in 1962 during the Chinese aggression, in 1971 during the war with Pakistan, and in 1975 — and the third is the reason the wording in this question was changed.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) The Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976 is the amendment candidates reach for whenever emergency provisions are mentioned, because it was passed during the emergency and is the most far-reaching amendment ever made — so extensive that it is often called a mini-Constitution. But it moved in the opposite direction from this question's change. It added the words socialist, secular and integrity to the Preamble, inserted the Fundamental Duties as Article 51A, extended the maximum period of President's rule under Article 356 from six months to one year, gave Directive Principles precedence over certain Fundamental Rights, curtailed the power of the courts, and permitted a Proclamation of Emergency to be issued for a part of the territory of India rather than the whole. It expanded the emergency power and restricted the judiciary; it did not narrow the ground for proclaiming an emergency. Much of what it did was undone by the Forty-fourth Amendment two years later, and knowing which of the two amendments moved in which direction resolves a whole family of questions.  (c) The Constitution (Fortieth Amendment) Act, 1976 has nothing to do with the emergency provisions of Article 352. It belongs to the series of amendments concerned with the Ninth Schedule, the schedule created by the First Amendment of 1951 to protect land reform and certain other laws from challenge on the ground that they violate Fundamental Rights; the Fortieth Amendment added a further batch of statutes to it. The Ninth Schedule is worth knowing in its own right, because the Supreme Court held in 2007 that laws placed in it after the Kesavananda Bharati judgment of 24 April 1973 remain open to challenge if they damage the basic structure of the Constitution, so the schedule is no longer the absolute shelter it was designed to be. An option of this kind is included to catch a candidate who recognises that the amendment belongs to the emergency years and assumes that it must therefore concern the emergency.  (d) The Constitution (Thirty-eighth Amendment) Act, 1975 is the most dangerous of the three wrong options, because it genuinely concerns Article 352 — but it did the reverse of what this question describes. Passed in the first months of the emergency, it made the President's satisfaction in proclaiming an emergency final and conclusive and beyond challenge in any court, and it enabled different Proclamations to be issued on different grounds at the same time. It did not touch the words 'internal disturbance'. Both of those changes were themselves undone by the Forty-fourth Amendment Act of 1978, which omitted the clause excluding judicial review. The pattern is worth carrying: the amendments of 1975 and 1976 strengthened the emergency power and shielded it from the courts, and the amendment of 1978 narrowed the ground, tightened the procedure and restored judicial scrutiny.

Concept: The Constitution provides for three kinds of emergency. A National Emergency under Article 352 may be proclaimed when the security of India or of any part of it is threatened by war, external aggression or armed rebellion — the last of those expressions having replaced 'internal disturbance' by the Forty-fourth Amendment Act of 1978. President's rule under Article 356 follows a failure of the constitutional machinery in a State, and a Financial Emergency under Article 360 may be declared if the financial stability or credit of India is threatened. Under Article 352 the Proclamation requires the written recommendation of the Cabinet, must be approved by both Houses within one month by a special majority, continues six months at a time, and may be revoked by the President at any time or on a simple-majority resolution of the Lok Sabha. Its effects are far-reaching: the Centre may give executive directions to any State and Parliament may legislate on State subjects, the term of the Lok Sabha may be extended by one year at a time, the financial arrangements between Centre and States may be altered, and Fundamental Rights may be affected. Article 358 automatically suspends the six freedoms of Article 19, but only where the emergency is proclaimed on the ground of war or external aggression; Article 359 empowers the President to suspend the right to move the courts for the enforcement of specified Fundamental Rights, but never those in Articles 20 and 21. Three national emergencies have been proclaimed, in 1962, in 1971 and in 1975, and the experience of the third produced the safeguards now in force.

State PCS 2021 Q76 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2021 Q76 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer