50 Fun Facts About Indian Constitution

Article 1 gives India a second, coequal name in the phrase that declares it 'shall be a Union of States'. Which name?

Bharat stands beside India in the very first article, a Sanskrit name the framers chose over Hindustan after a heated Constituent Assembly debate.

How long did the Constituent Assembly take to finish the Constitution, at a total cost of about 6.4 million rupees?

2 years 11 months and 18 days covered the whole job, from the first sitting on 9 December 1946 to the day the Assembly adopted the Constitution, 26 November 1949.

Which British statute, drafted mainly by Samuel Hoare, provided the basis for the Constitution adopted in 1949?

The Government of India Act of 1935 was so long that Parliament only outdid it with the Greater London Authority Act in 1999, and chunks of it still sit in the statutes of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Which of the emergencies the President may proclaim, the one provided for by Article 360, has never once been declared?

Financial emergency would let the President cut the salaries of every government official, judges included, yet no guidelines for invoking it have ever been written.

Article 343 names Hindi in which script as the Union's official language, a choice that split the Constituent Assembly?

Devanagari Hindi won by a whisker, and the deal that carried it kept English on for official work for fifteen years, a clock that ran out in 1965.

Which fundamental right did the 44th Amendment strip from Part III in 1978, leaving it a legal right under Article 300A?

Property had been guaranteed by Articles 19 and 31 until the Janata government demoted it, so the state can now acquire land by ordinary law rather than constitutional amendment.

Which numbered Penal Code section on 'unnatural offences' did Navtej Singh Johar v Union of India read down in 2018?

Section 377 dated from 1860, and the unanimous bench left it standing only for sex with minors, non-consensual acts and bestiality.

Which country's attack across the Himalayas in 1962 prompted India's first national emergency under Article 352?

China's invasion led President Radhakrishnan to proclaim an emergency that outlasted the 1965 war with Pakistan and was lifted only in 1968.

Which state's elected Communist government was dismissed under Article 356 in 1959, an early use of President's rule?

Kerala had voted in one of the first elected Communist ministries anywhere only two years earlier, and Nehru's government removed it after months of street protests.

The 103rd Amendment of 2019 reserved what share of seats and posts for 'economically weaker sections'?

The 10% carve-out was the first reservation based on income rather than caste, and it cleared the Lok Sabha 323 votes to 3 in a single day.

Which amendment, passed in December 1988, lowered the voting age for Lok Sabha and assembly elections from 21 to 18?

The 61st Amendment was introduced as the Sixty-second Amendment Bill in December 1988 and took its final number only when it became an Act in March 1989.

Which writ against unlawful imprisonment did the Supreme Court let the Emergency suspend in the 1976 ADM Jabalpur case?

Habeas corpus lost four to one in 1976, and the lone dissenter, H. R. Khanna, was passed over for Chief Justice the following year in retaliation.

What minimum age does Article 58 set for a presidential candidate, ten years above the Lok Sabha's 25?

35 is the floor, and Article 57 sets no ceiling on terms either: a President may stand for re-election as often as the electoral college will have them.

How many Rajya Sabha members may the President nominate for distinction in art, literature, science or social service?

The 12 nominees sit and vote like any member, except in presidential elections, where Article 54 limits the electoral college to elected members.

Within how many days must the Rajya Sabha return a money bill certified by the Speaker, or see it deemed passed?

14 days is all the upper house gets, and it may only recommend changes, which is why the 2016 Aadhaar law was pushed through as a money bill.

Which 1992 amendment gave panchayats constitutional status, adding Part IX and reserving a third of seats for women?

The 73rd Amendment took effect on 24 April 1993 and handed village councils 29 subjects listed in a new Eleventh Schedule, from drinking water to libraries.

Which party, demanding a separate state, boycotted the Constituent Assembly's first sitting on 9 December 1946?

The Muslim League had won 73 of the 296 provincial seats and stayed away until partition; 28 of its members then joined India's Assembly while the rest sat in Pakistan's.

Which prime minister moved the First Amendment in 1951, adding 'reasonable restrictions' to free speech?

Jawaharlal Nehru amended the Constitution barely sixteen months after it took effect, irritated that courts had struck down press censorship and a Madras caste quota.

Which numbered article abolishes 'untouchability' and makes practising it in any form an offence punishable by law?

Article 17 is one of the few fundamental rights enforceable against private citizens, not just the state, and Parliament backed it with the Protection of Civil Rights Act in 1955.

Which numbered article, now read to cover privacy, livelihood and a clean environment, protects life and liberty?

Article 21 is a single 18-word sentence, yet the Supreme Court has stretched 'procedure established by law' into a due-process guarantee since 1978.

Which numbered article asks the state to 'endeavour to secure' a uniform civil code, as Uttarakhand did in 2024?

Article 44 sat unused for 74 years as a 'dead letter' despite repeated Supreme Court reminders, and Goa's Portuguese-era code was the only working example.

Which body, set up by the 99th Amendment to replace the collegium in picking judges, was struck down in 2015?

The National Judicial Appointments Commission lasted six months: in force from April 2015, it was voided in October by a 4–1 bench that revived the judges-pick-judges collegium.

From which country's constitution did India borrow residuary powers for the centre and a strong central government?

Canada also supplied the idea that the centre appoints state governors, which is why an Indian governor serves at the President's pleasure rather than by election.

From which country's constitution did India copy the suspension of fundamental rights during a declared emergency?

Germany's Weimar constitution was the model, the same emergency clause Hitler used in 1933, and India's version was invoked in full between 1975 and 1977.

From which country's constitution did India take 'procedure established by law', rejecting American 'due process'?

Japan's 1947 constitution supplied the wording, which B. N. Rau urged on the Assembly in 1948 because 'due process' would hamper social legislation and hand judges too much power.

From which country did India borrow the Fundamental Duties added under Article 51A in 1976, and a planning commission?

The Soviet Union was the model for duties ranging from respecting the flag to developing 'scientific temper', inserted on the advice of the Swaran Singh Committee during the Emergency.

From which country's constitution did India borrow its procedure for amending the Constitution under Article 368?

South Africa also lent the method of electing Rajya Sabha members, and the amendment procedure it inspired has been used more than a hundred times since 1950.

Which schedule, added by the First Amendment in 1951 to protect land reforms, puts statutes beyond judicial review?

The Ninth Schedule began with 13 zamindari-abolition acts, and a 1981 ruling shielded everything added before the 1973 basic-structure case while leaving later entries open to review.

Which subject moved from the State List to the Concurrent List in 1976, so Parliament could legislate on schools?

Education moved along with forests and wildlife during the Emergency, which is why a central Right to Education Act could bind every state in 2009.

Which 1967 ruling by eleven judges barred Parliament from curtailing Fundamental Rights, until the 24th Amendment?

Golaknath turned on a Punjab family's farmland, and the bench that decided it was the largest the Supreme Court had assembled until the 13 judges of 1973.

Which 1997 case, filed after social worker Bhanwari Devi was gang-raped, set India's workplace harassment guidelines?

Vishaka filled a gap no statute covered, and the guidelines stood in for a law for sixteen years until Parliament finally passed one in 2013.

Who in 1989 became the Supreme Court's first woman judge, and the first Muslim woman on any higher court in India?

Fathima Beevi reached the top court 39 years after it opened, and after retiring she served as Governor of Tamil Nadu from 1997 to 2001.

Carrying which article of faith does an explanation to Article 25 deem part of professing the Sikh religion?

The kirpan gets its own constitutional footnote, and the exemption reaches as far as domestic flights, where Sikhs may wear one on board.

Which practice does Article 22 allow for up to three months without an advisory board, odd in a chapter of rights?

Preventive detention without trial was approved only reluctantly by the Constituent Assembly in 1949, and laws like MISA used it freely during the Emergency.

Which Shantiniketan artist led the decoration of the handwritten Constitution's pages with Beohar Rammanohar Sinha?

Nandalal Bose and his Shantiniketan students decorated every page by hand, and producing the finished original took nearly five years, long after the text had become law.

How many women sat in the Constituent Assembly, among them Hansa Mehta, who helped shape the Universal Declaration?

15 women out of some 299 members included Hansa Mehta, who got the Universal Declaration to say 'all human beings' rather than 'all men' are born free and equal.

Which resolution, moved in the Constituent Assembly in December 1946, became the basis of the Preamble?

The Objectives Resolution promised an 'independent sovereign republic' before Britain had agreed to leave, and its ideals of justice, liberty and equality survive word for word.

Which numbered article lets the Supreme Court pass any order needed for 'complete justice', as in the Ayodhya verdict?

Article 142 has few parallels abroad, and the Ayodhya bench relied on it to award the Sunni Waqf Board alternate land while handing the disputed site to a temple trust.

Which numbered article requires the 'annual financial statement' that the rest of the country calls the Union Budget?

Article 112 never uses the word budget, and the Finance Ministry document it demands was read out at 5 pm until 1999, to suit London's clocks.

Which schedule grants autonomy and district councils to Scheduled Tribes in the hill regions of Northeast India?

The Sixth Schedule was written for the old Assam hills, and Tripura had to ask to be brought under it, winning coverage for its tribal council only in 1984.

How many bills have passed at a joint sitting under Article 108, the last being the Prevention of Terrorism Bill?

Three joint sittings since 1950 began with the Dowry Prohibition Bill of 1961, and each was chaired by the Lok Sabha Speaker rather than the Rajya Sabha's chairman.

Which 1980 case struck down the 42nd Amendment clauses that had put constitutional amendments beyond judicial review?

Minerva Mills ended with the rule that Parliament's amending power is limited and 'not a power to destroy', so even an Emergency-era supermajority could not put amendments beyond the courts.

Which 1994 ruling, named for a dismissed Karnataka chief minister, made President's rule subject to judicial review?

S. R. Bommai lost his Karnataka ministry in April 1989 after defections, and the verdict that bears his name made a floor test, not a governor's report, the test of a majority.

In which hall of Parliament House, where the Federal Court had sat since 1937, did the Supreme Court sit until 1958?

The Chamber of Princes had housed the Federal Court since 1937, so India's new top court simply inherited the benches of its colonial predecessor for eight years.

Which Supreme Court judge faced India's first removal motion in 1993, which failed when 205 Congress MPs abstained?

V. Ramaswami was found guilty on 11 of 14 charges by a judges' committee, yet the vote was 196 to 0 with the abstentions denying the two-thirds needed, and no judge has been removed since.

Which Chief Justice served the longest, seven years and four months from 1978, and was nicknamed 'Iron Hands'?

Y. V. Chandrachud was the 16th holder of the office and spent thirteen years on the court in all, from his appointment in August 1972 to his retirement in July 1985.

Which ICS officer, the first Chief Election Commissioner, ran the 1951–52 general election and then Sudan's in 1953?

Sukumar Sen was a mathematics gold medallist handed the job of registering 176 million electors, most of whom could not read, and he asked Nehru to wait rather than rush the vote.

Which 1960 presidential reference on ceding land to Pakistan held that the Preamble was not part of the Constitution?

Berubari Union was reversed in 1973, when the Kesavananda bench ruled the Preamble is part of the Constitution and one of the keys to its basic structure.

Which numbered article, the Constitution's last, repeals the Indian Independence Act of 1947 that created the dominion?

Article 395 is the Constitution's way of cutting its own umbilical cord: it repeals the British statute that created independent India, together with the Government of India Act 1935.

Which payments to former princely rulers, promised when their states merged, did the 26th Amendment abolish in 1971?

Privy purses had bought the rulers' surrender of sovereignty in 1947 and 1949, and Indira Gandhi needed a two-year legal fight and a constitutional amendment to end them.