49 Fun Facts About Indian Constitution

Which name does Article 1 place beside India in the phrase declaring that it 'shall be a Union of States'?

Bharat stands beside India in the very first article, a Sanskrit name the Constituent Assembly adopted in 1949 while passing over Hindustan.

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 ran from the first sitting on 9 December 1946 to adoption on 26 November 1949; the Philadelphia convention of 1787 had written the American constitution in under four months.

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 condemned by the Congress, which vowed to wreck it, yet the party fought the 1937 elections held under it and took office in the provinces.

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 order pay cuts for everyone in government service, Supreme Court and High Court judges included.

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

Devanagari Hindi came with a compromise that kept English for official work for fifteen years; when that clock ran out in 1965, alarm in non-Hindi states led Parliament to keep English on.

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 an owner can no longer go straight to the Supreme Court claiming a breach of fundamental rights.

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 attack brought the first proclamation, on the ground of external aggression; the third, in 1975, cited 'internal disturbance' instead.

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

Kerala had voted in a Communist state ministry only two years earlier, and the central 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 reserves places by family income rather than caste, and it cleared the Lok Sabha by 323 votes to 3.

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.

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 critics say 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.

Who moved the First Amendment in Parliament 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 went unused by any state for 74 years, leaving Goa's Portuguese-era family code as the only working example until Uttarakhand passed its own.

Which body, set up by the 99th Amendment to replace the collegium, 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 because an American-style 'due process' clause could hamper social legislation.

From which country's constitution did India borrow the Fundamental Duties added as Article 51A in 1976?

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 the Supreme Court later held that laws added after its 1973 basic-structure ruling can still be tested against it.

Which subject did the 42nd Amendment move from the State List to the Concurrent List in 1976, during the Emergency?

Education moved along with forests and wildlife, 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 first woman to sit as a judge of the Supreme Court of India?

Fathima Beevi was also the first Muslim woman in India's higher judiciary, and as Governor of Tamil Nadu she resigned in 2001 after the Union Cabinet moved to recall her.

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 means holding people for what they might do, and laws like MISA used it against thousands of the government's opponents 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 pages that the calligrapher Prem Behari Narain Raizada had written out for no fee, asking only to sign each one.

Which Constituent Assembly member got the Universal Declaration to say 'all human beings' rather than 'all men'?

Hansa Mehta sat on the UN Commission on Human Rights with Eleanor Roosevelt, its only other woman delegate, and objected that 'all men are born free and equal' could be read to leave women out.

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

The Objectives Resolution declared India an 'Independent Sovereign Republic' eight months before independence, and its ideals of justice, equality and freedom were carried into the Preamble.

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 hill districts of old Assam, and Tripura's tribal council came under it only through an amendment passed in 1984.

As of 2025, which anti-terror bill of 2002 is the last of only three passed at a joint sitting of Parliament?

POTA, the Prevention of Terrorism Act, went through a joint sitting in March 2002 and was repealed just two years later; the other two were a dowry bill in 1961 and a banking bill in 1978.

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 power to amend is itself limited, so it cannot be used to make that power unlimited, even by an Emergency-era supermajority.

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 had been found guilty of misconduct by a committee of judges, yet the vote was 196 to 0 with the abstentions denying the two-thirds needed, and he kept his seat.

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

Y. V. Chandrachud's son Dhananjaya became Chief Justice in 2022, having already overturned rulings his father had joined while a judge of the same court.

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 173 million voters, and he gave every candidate a separate ballot box marked with a symbol.

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

Article 395 is still the last because later additions take letters, such as 51A, and slot in where they belong; it cut the cord to the British statute that had made India a dominion.

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, and Indira Gandhi needed a bill that failed by one vote and then a constitutional amendment to end them.