Supreme Court will give its verdict on November 25 on the demand to remove the words Secular and Socialist from the Indian Constitution Preamble.

The Supreme Court today said the 1976 amendment that added the words “socialist”, “secular” and “integrity” to the Preamble of the Constitution has been subjected to judicial review. Let us tell you that the bench of Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar reserved its decision on the petitions of senior advocate Ashwini Upadhyay, former Rajya Sabha member Subramanian Swamy, advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain and others, in which the Preamble of the Constitution says ” The inclusion of the words “socialist” and “secular” was challenged. The bench said it will pronounce its order on this issue on November 25. It is notable that the words “socialist”, “secular” and “integrity” were included in the Preamble of the Constitution under the 42nd Constitutional Amendment introduced by the Indira Gandhi-led government in 1976. Through the amendment, the description of India in the Preamble was changed from “Sovereign, Democratic Republic” to “Sovereign, Socialist, Secular, Democratic Republic”. Let us remind you that Emergency in India was declared by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi from June 25, 1975 to March 21, 1977.

During the hearing, petitioner advocate Ashwini Upadhyay said that he is not against the concepts of “socialism” and “secularism”, but opposes their inclusion in the Preamble. Ashwini Upadhyay urged the court to hear the views of the Attorney General and Solicitor General, arguing that the 42nd Amendment was not ratified by the states. Let us remind you that the Supreme Court had said on October 21 that secularism has always been considered an integral part of the basic structure of the Indian Constitution and the words “socialist” and “secular” should not be treated as Western concepts. Needed Earlier, on February 9, the top court had asked whether the Preamble of the Constitution could be amended while retaining its date of approval as November 26, 1949. Earlier in September, 2022, the apex court had clubbed several petitions filed in this regard for simultaneous hearing.