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Polity & Governance
Mahesh

30/06/24 05:15 AM IST

The story of the Emergency

In News
  • On June 25, India entered the fiftieth year of the imposition of the Emergency, an extraordinary 21-month period from 1975 to 1977.
About Emergency
  • The Emergency refers to the period from June 25, 1975 to March 21, 1977, during which the government of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi used special provisions in the Constitution to impose sweeping executive and legislative consequences on the country.
  • Almost all opposition leaders were put in jail. Fundamental rights, including the freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under Article 19(1)(a), were curtailed, which led to pre-censorship of the press.
  • The declaration of Emergency converts the federal structure into a de facto unitary one, as the Union acquires the right to give any direction to state governments, which, though not suspended, come under the complete control of the Centre.
  • Parliament may by law extend the (five-year) term of Lok Sabha one year at a time, make laws on subjects in the State List, and extend the Union’s executive powers to the states.
  • The President can modify, with parliamentary approval, constitutional provisions on the allocation of financial resources between the Union and states.
Legal & Constitutional Sanction
  • Under Article 352 of the Constitution, the President may, on the advice of the Cabinet headed by the Prime Minister, issue a proclamation of emergency if the security of India or any part of the country is threatened by “war or external aggression or armed rebellion”.
  • In 1975, instead of armed rebellion, the ground of “internal disturbance” was available to the government to proclaim an emergency.
  • In its press note, the government said certain persons were inciting the police and armed forces to not discharge their duties — an apparent reference to Jayaprakash Narayan’s call to police not to follow orders that were “immoral”.
  • This was the only instance of proclamation of emergency due to “internal disturbance”.
  • The two occasions in which an emergency was proclaimed earlier, on October 26, 1962, and December 3, 1971, were both on grounds of war.
  • This ground of “internal disturbance” was removed by The Constitution (Forty-fourth Amendment) Act, 1978 by the Janata government that came to power after the Emergency.
  • Article 358 frees the state of all limitations imposed by Article 19 (“Right to freedom”) as soon as an emergency is imposed.
  • Article 359 empowers the President to suspend the right of people to move court for the enforcement of their rights during an emergency.
Concerns posed by Emergency
  • The Janata government reversed many of the constitutional changes effected by the 42nd Amendment Act of 1976.
  • It did not do away with the provision of the emergency, but made it extremely difficult to impose for the future. It made judicial review of a proclamation of emergency possible again, and mandated that every proclamation of emergency be laid before both Houses of Parliament within a month of the proclamation.
  • Unless it was approved by both Houses by a special majority — a majority of the total strength of the House and not less than two-thirds of the members present and voting — the proclamation would lapse.
  • The 44th Amendment removed “internal disturbance” as a ground for the imposition of an emergency, meaning that armed rebellion alone would now be a ground, apart from war and external aggression.
  • However, the 44th Amendment left the words ‘secular’ and ‘socialist’, inserted in the Preamble by the 42nd Amendment, untouched.
  • The Shah Commission, constituted by the Janata government to report on the imposition of the Emergency and its adverse effects, submitted a damning report that found the decision to be unilateral, and adversely affecting civil liberties.
Source- Indian Express

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