Amendments made so far may be classified in three groups. In the first group there are amendments, which are of a technical or administrative nature and were only clarifications, explanations, and minor modifications etc. of the original provisions. They are amendments only in the legal sense, but in matter of fact, they made no substantial difference to the provisions. This is true of the amendment that increased the age of retirement of High Court judges from 60 to 62 years (15th amendment). Similarly, salaries of judges of High Courts and the Supreme Court were increased by an amendment (54th amendment). We may also take the example of the provision regarding reserved seats in the legislatures for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. The original provision said that these reservations were for a period of ten years. However, in order to ensure fair representation of these sections, it was necessary to extend this period by ten years. Thus, after every ten years an amendment is made to extend the period by another ten years. This has led to six amendments so far. But these amendments have not made any difference to the original provision. In this sense, it is only a technical amendment.

A number of amendments are a product of different interpretations of the Constitution given by the judiciary and the government of the day. When these clashed, the Parliament had to insert an amendment underlining one particular interpretation as the authentic one. It is part of the democratic politics that various institutions would interpret the Constitution and particularly the scope of their own powers in a different manner. Many times, the Parliament did not agree with the judicial interpretation and therefore, sought to amend the Constitution to overcome the ruling of the judiciary. In the period between 1970 and 1975 this situation arose frequently. In the chapter on the Judiciary, you have already studied the issues of difference between the Judiciary and Parliament: one was the relationship between fundamental rights and directive principles, the other was the scope of the right to private property and the third was the scope of Parliament’s power to amend the Constitution.

Thirdly, there is another large group of amendments that have been made as a result of the consensus among the political parties. We may say that this consensus made it necessary that some changes had to be made in order to reflect the prevailing political philosophy and aspirations of the society. In fact, many of the amendments of the post-1984 period are instances of this trend. Remember our question above about the peculiarity that even when there were coalition governments, this period saw so many amendments? The reason is because many of these amendments were based on an evolving consensus on certain issues. Starting with the anti-defection amendment (52nd amendment), this period saw a series of amendments in spite of the political turbulence. Apart from the anti-defection amendments (52nd and 91st), these amendments include the 61st amendment bringing down the minimum age for voting from 21 to 18 years, the 73rd and the 74th amendments, etc.

Our discussion so far should not create an impression that there has never been any controversy over amending the Constitution. In fact, amendments during the period 1970 to 1980 generated a lot of legal and political controversy. The parties that were in opposition during the period 1971-1976 saw many of these amendments as attempts by the ruling party to subvert the Constitution. In particular, the 38th, 39th and 42nd amendments have been the most controversial amendments so far. These three amendments were made in the background of internal emergency declared in the country from June 1975. They sought to make basic changes in many crucial parts of the Constitution. The 42nd amendment was particularly seen as a wide-ranging amendment affecting large parts of the Constitution. It was also an attempt to override the ruling of the Supreme Court given in the Kesavananda case. Even the duration of the Lok Sabha was extended from five to six years. In the chapter on Rights, you have read about Fundamental Duties. They were included in the Constitution by this amendment act. The 42nd amendment also put restrictions on the review powers of the Judiciary.