Constitutional Amendments and their Impacts on the Democratic Development

Abstract

There have been more than 100 constitutional amendments till date. Few of these have had a significant impact on shaping our nation as it exists today. This article will address the most important constitutional amendments and it’s social and political impact.
Our constitution went through a number of amendments due to the inherent simplicity in the procedure for passing such amendments. 1st, 4th, 17th, 24th, 25th and 29th amendments pertaining to fundamental rights and therefore, the judiciary imposed a limitation on the amending power of the constitution of India, which developed during conflicts between the Supreme Court and Parliament, where Parliament wanted to exercise discretionary power to amend the constitution while the Supreme Court wanted to restrict that power. This led to the laying down of Basic Structure doctrine in 1973. The doctrine curtailed the legislatures’ power to amend the fundamental principles of our constitution like Secularism, Independence of Judiciary, Federalism, Rule of Law etc. An amendment to the constitution under Article 368 can be challenged on the ground of violation of the basic structure of the constitution unlike an ordinary legislation. In the Golaknath v. State of Punjab too it was held that the Parliament’s power to amend is limited as Article 368 only contains the procedure for amendment whereas the power is derived from Article 245 read with List 1 of the Constitution. But it was elaborated in the Kesavananda Bharti case. Later, in the Woman Rao v. Union of India Case constitutional amendments