The Constitution of India (IAST: Bhāratīya Saṃvidhāna) is the supreme law

of India.[3][4] The document lays down the framework demarcating fundamental

political code, structure, procedures, powers, and duties of government institutions
and sets out fundamental rights, directive principles, and the duties of citizens. It is
the longest written constitution of any country on earth.[b][5][6][7] B. R. Ambedkar,
chairman of the drafting committee, is widely considered to be its chief architect.[8]
It imparts constitutional supremacy (not parliamentary supremacy, since it was
created by a constituent assembly rather than Parliament) and was adopted by its
people with a declaration in its preamble.[9][full citation needed] Parliament cannot override the
constitution.

B. R. Ambedkar and Constitution of India on a 2015 postage stamp of India

It was adopted by the Constituent Assembly of India on 26 November 1949 and

became effective on 26 January 1950.[10] The constitution replaced the Government
of India Act 1935 as the country's fundamental governing document, and
the Dominion of India became the Republic of India. To ensure constitutional
autochthony, its framers repealed prior acts of the British parliament in Article 395.
[11]
 India celebrates its constitution on 26 January as Republic Day.[12]
The constitution declares India a sovereign, socialist, secular,[13] democratic republic,
assuring its citizens justice, equality and liberty, and endeavours to
promote fraternity.[14] The original 1950 constitution is preserved in a helium-filled
case at the Parliament House in New Delhi. The words "secular" and "socialist" were
added to the preamble in 1976 during the Emergency.[15]

Contents

 1Background
o 1.1Previous legislation
 2Constituent Assembly
o 2.1Timeline of formation of the Constitution of India
o 2.2Membership
o 2.3Drafting
 3Influence of other constitutions
 4Structure
o 4.1Parts
o 4.2Schedules
o 4.3Appendices
 5Constitution and government
  6Constitution and legislature
o 6.1Amendments
o 6.2Limitations
 7Constitution and judiciary
o 7.1Judicial review
 8Flexibility
 9See also
 10Notes
o 10.1Notes on Article 21
 11References
 12Bibliography
 13External links

Background

Babasaheb Ambedkar, chairman of the drafting committee, presenting the final draft of the Indian
constitution to Constituent Assembly president Rajendra Prasad on 25 November 1949

Most of the Indian subcontinent was under British rule from 1857 to 1947. From 1947

to 1950, the same legislation continued to be implemented as India was
a dominion of Britain for these three years, as each princely state was convinced
by Sardar Patel and V.P.Menon to sign the articles of integration with India, and the
British government continued to be responsible for the external security of the
country.[16] Thus, the constitution of India repealed the Indian Independence Act
1947 and Government of India Act 1935 when it became effective on 26 January
1950. India ceased to be a dominion of the British Crown and became a sovereign
democratic republic with the constitution. Articles 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 60, 324, 366, 367,
379, 380, 388, 391, 392, 393, and 394 of the constitution came into force on 26
November 1949, and the remaining articles became effective on 26 January 1950.[17]
Previous legislation
The constitution was drawn from a number of sources. Mindful of India's needs and
conditions, its framers borrowed features of previous legislation such as
the Government of India Act 1858, the Indian Councils Acts of 1861, 1892 and 1909,
the Government of India Acts 1919 and 1935, and the Indian Independence Act
1947. The latter, which led to the creation of India and Pakistan, divided the former
Constituent Assembly in two. Each new assembly had sovereign power to draft and
enact a new constitution for the separate states.[18]
Constituent Assembly

1950 Constituent Assembly meeting

Main article: Constituent Assembly of India

The constitution was drafted by the Constituent Assembly, which was elected by
elected members of the provincial assemblies.[19] The 389-member assembly
(reduced to 299 after the partition of India) took almost three years to draft the
constitution holding eleven sessions over a 165-day period.[5][18]
B. R. Ambedkar was a wise constitutional expert, he had studied the constitutions of
about 60 countries. Ambedkar is recognised as the "Father of the Constitution of
India".[20][21] In the constitution assembly, a member of the drafting committee, T. T.
Krishnamachari said:
"Mr. President, Sir, I am one of those in the House who have listened to Dr.
Ambedkar very carefully. I am aware of the amount of work and enthusiasm that he
has brought to bear on the work of drafting this Constitution. At the same time, I do
realise that that amount of attention that was necessary for the purpose of drafting a
constitution so important to us at this moment has not been given to it by the Drafting
Committee. The House is perhaps aware that of the seven members nominated by
you, one had resigned from the House and was replaced. One died and was not
replaced. One was away in America and his place was not filled up and another
person was engaged in State affairs, and there was a void to that extent. One or two
people were far away from Delhi and perhaps reasons of health did not permit them
to attend. So it happened ultimately that the burden of drafting this constitution fell on
Dr. Ambedkar and I have no doubt that we are grateful to him for having achieved
this task in a manner which is undoubtedly commendable."[22][23]
Timeline of formation of the Constitution of India

 6 December 1946: Formation of the Constitution

Assembly (in accordance with French practice).
 9 December 1946: The first meeting was held in the
constitution hall (now the Central Hall of Parliament
House). The 1st person to address was J. B.
Kripalani, Sachchidananda Sinha became temporary
president. (Demanding a separate state, the Muslim
League boycotted the meeting.)
 11 December 1946: The Assembly appointed Rajendra
Prasad as its president, H. C. Mukherjee as its vice-
chairman and B. N. Rau as constitutional legal
 adviser. (There were initially 389 members in total,
which declined to 299 after partition. Out of the 389
members, 292 were from government provinces, 4 from
chief commissioner provinces and 93 from princely
states.)
 13 December 1946: An 'Objective Resolution' was
presented by Jawaharlal Nehru, laying down the
underlying principles of the constitution. This later
became the Preamble of the Constitution.
 22 January 1947: Objective resolution unanimously
adopted.
 22 July 1947: National flag adopted.
 15 August 1947: Achieved independence. India split
into the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan.
 29 August 1947: Drafting Committee appointed with B.
R. Ambedkar as its Chairman. The other 6 members of
committee were Munshi, Muhammed Sadulla, Alladi
Krishnaswamy Iyer, N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar, Khaitan
and Mitter.
 16 July 1948: Along with Harendra Coomar
Mookerjee, V. T. Krishnamachari was also elected as
second vice-president of Constituent Assembly.
 26 November 1949: The Constitution of India was
passed and adopted by the assembly.
 24 January 1950: Last meeting of Constituent
Assembly. The Constitution was signed and accepted.
(with 395 Articles, 8 Schedules, 22 Parts)
 26 January 1950: The Constitution came into force.
(The process took 2 years, 11 months and 18 days - at
a total expenditure of ₹6.4 million to finish.)
G. V. Mavlankar was the first Speaker of the Lok Sabha (the lower house of
Parliament) after India turned into a republic.
Membership
B. R. Ambedkar, Sanjay Phakey, Jawaharlal Nehru, C. Rajagopalachari, Rajendra
Prasad, Vallabhbhai Patel, Kanaiyalal Maneklal Munshi, Ganesh Vasudev
Mavalankar, Sandipkumar Patel, Abul Kalam Azad, Shyama Prasad
Mukherjee, Nalini Ranjan Ghosh, and Balwantrai Mehta were key figures in the
assembly,[5][18] which had over 30 representatives of the scheduled classes. Frank
Anthony represented the Anglo-Indian community,[5] and the Parsis were represented
by H. P. Modi.[5] Harendra Coomar Mookerjee, a Christian assembly vice-president,
chaired the minorities committee and represented non-Anglo-Indian Christians.[5] Ari
Bahadur Gurung represented the Gorkha community.[5] Judges, such as Alladi
Krishnaswamy Iyer, Benegal Narsing Rau, K. M. Munshi and Ganesh
Mavlankar were members of the assembly.[5] Female members included Sarojini
Naidu, Hansa Mehta, Durgabai Deshmukh, Amrit Kaur and Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit.[5]
The first, two-day president of the assembly was Sachchidananda Sinha; Rajendra
Prasad was later elected president.[18][19] It met for the first time on 9 December 1946.[5]
[19][15]

Drafting
Sir Benegal Narsing Rau, a civil servant who became the first Indian judge in
the International Court of Justice and was president of the United Nations Security
Council, was appointed as the assembly's constitutional adviser in 1946.
[24]
 Responsible for the constitution's general structure, Rau prepared its initial draft in
February 1948.[24][25][26] The draft of B.N. Rau consisted of 243 articles and 13
schedules which came to 395 articles and 8 schedules after discussions, debates
and amendments.[27]
At 14 August 1947 meeting of the assembly, committees were proposed.[19] Rau's
draft was considered, debated and amended by the eight-person drafting committee,
which was appointed on 29 August 1947 with B. R. Ambedkar as chair.[5][15] A revised
draft constitution was prepared by the committee and submitted to the assembly on
4 November 1947.[15] Dr B. R. Ambedkar in his concluding speech in constituent
assembly on November 25, 1949 stated that:
The credit that is given to me does not really belong to me. It belongs partly to Sir
B.N. Rau the Constitutional Advisor to the Constituent Assembly who prepared a
rough draft of the Constitution for the consideration of Drafting Committee.
[28]

While deliberating the revised draft constitution, the assembly moved, discussed and
disposed off 2,473 amendments out of a total of 7,635.[18][29] Before adopting the
constitution, the assembly held eleven sessions in 165 days.[5][18] On 26 November
1949, it adopted the constitution,[5][18][15][26][30] which was signed by 284 members.[5][18][15][26]
[30]
 The day is celebrated as National Law Day,[5][31] or Constitution Day.[5][32] The day was
chosen to spread the importance of the constitution and to spread thoughts and
ideas of Ambedkar.[33]

Jawaharlal Nehru signing the constitution

The assembly's final session convened on 24 January 1950. Each member signed
two copies of the constitution, one in Hindi and the other in English.[5][18][26] The original
constitution is hand-written, with each page decorated by artists
from Shantiniketan including Beohar Rammanohar Sinha and Nandalal Bose.[15]
[26]
 Its calligrapher was Prem Behari Narain Raizada.[15] The constitution was published
in Dehradun and photolithographed by the Survey of India. Production of the original
constitution took nearly five years. Two days later, on 26 January 1950, it became
the law of India.[15][34] The estimated cost of the Constituent Assembly
was ₹6.3 crore (₹63 million).[18] The constitution has had more than 100
amendments since it was enacted.[35]

Influence of other constitutions

  United Kingdom
o Parliamentary government[5]
o Concept of single citizenship[5]
o Rule of law
o The legislative speaker and their role
o Legislative procedure
  United States[36]
o Bill of Rights[5][15]
o Federal structure of government[5]
o Electoral College
o Independent judiciary and separation of powers
o Judicial review
o President as commander-in-chief of the armed
forces
o Equal protection under law
  Ireland
o Directive principles of state policy[15]
  Australia
o Freedom of trade between states[18]
o National legislative power to implement treaties,
even on matters outside normal federal jurisdiction
o Concurrent List[37]
o Preamble terminology
  France
o Ideals of liberté, égalité, fraternité[5][15]
  Canada
o Quasi-federal government — a federal system with a
strong central government[18]
o Distribution of powers between the central and state
governments[5][18]
o Residual powers, retained by the central
government[citation needed]
  Soviet Union
o Fundamental Duties under article 51-A[5]
o Mandated planning commission to oversee
economic development[5]
 Other constitutions
o The emergency provision under article 356 (from
the   Weimar Constitution)[15]
 o Amending the constitution (from   South Africa)
o Due process (from   Japan)

Structure
The Indian constitution is the world's longest for a sovereign nation.[b][5][6][7] At its
enactment, it had 395 articles in 22 parts and 8 schedules.[18] At about 145,000
words, it is the second-longest active constitution – after the Constitution of
Alabama – in the world.[38]
The constitution has a preamble and 470 articles,[c][15] which are grouped into 25 parts.
[d][15]
 With 12 schedules[e][15] and five appendices,[15][39] it has been amended 104 times;
the latest amendment became effective on 14 January 2019.[40][41]
Parts
The constitution's articles are grouped into the following parts:

 Preamble,[42] with the words "socialist", "secular" and

'integrity' added in 1976 by the 42nd amendment[43][44]
 Part I[45] – States and union territories
 Part II[46] – Citizenship
 Part III – Fundamental Rights
 Part IV[47] – Directive Principles of State Policy
 Part IVA – Fundamental Duties
 Part V[48] – The union
 Part VI[49] – The states
 Part VII[50] – States in the B part of the first
schedule (repealed)
 Part VIII[51] – Union territories
 Part IX[52] – Panchayats
 Part IXA[53] – Municipalities
 Part IXB – Co-operative societies[54]
 Part X – Scheduled and tribal areas
 Part XI – Relations between the union and the states
 Part XII – Finance, property, contracts and suits
 Part XIII – Trade and commerce within India
 Part XIV – Services under the union and states
 Part XIVA – Tribunals
 Part XV – Elections
 Part XVI – Special provisions relating to certain classes
 Part XVII – Languages
 Part XVIII – Emergency provisions
 Part XIX – Miscellaneous
 Part XX – Amending the constitution
 Part XXI – Temporary, transitional and special
provisions
  Part XXII – Short title, date of commencement,
authoritative text in Hindi and repeals
Schedules
Schedules are lists in the constitution which categorise and tabulate bureaucratic
activity and government policy.

 First Schedule (Articles 1 and 4) – Lists India's states

and territories, changes in their borders and the laws
used to make that change.
 Second Schedule (Articles 59(3), 65(3), 75(6), 97, 125,
148(3), 158(3), 164(5), 186 and 221) – Lists the salaries
of public officials, judges, and the comptroller and
auditor general.
 Third Schedule (Articles 75(4), 99, 124(6), 148(2),
164(3), 188 and 219) – Forms of oaths – Lists the oaths
of office for elected officials and judges.
 Fourth Schedule (Articles 4(1) and 80(2)) – Details the
allocation of seats in the Rajya Sabha (upper house of
Parliament) by state or union territory.
 Fifth Schedule (Article 244(1)) – Provides for the
administration and control of Scheduled
Areas[f] and Scheduled Tribes[g] (areas and tribes
requiring special protection).
 Sixth Schedule (Articles 244(2) and 275(1)) – Provisions
made for the administration of tribal areas in Assam,
Meghalaya, Tripura, and Mizoram.
 Seventh Schedule (Article 246) — Central government,
state, and concurrent lists of responsibilities
 Eighth Schedule (Articles 344(1) and 351) – Official
languages
 Ninth Schedule (Article 31-B) – Validation of certain acts
and regulations[h]
 Tenth Schedule (Articles 102(2) and 191(2)) – Anti-
defection provisions for members of Parliament and
state legislatures.
 Eleventh Schedule (Article 243-G) —Panchayat
Raj (rural local government)
 Twelfth Schedule (Article 243-
W) — Municipalities (urban local government)
Appendices

 Appendix I – The Constitution (Application to Jammu

and Kashmir) Order, 1954
 Appendix II – Re-statement, referring to the
constitution's present text, of exceptions and
modifications applicable to the state of Jammu and
Kashmir
  Appendix III – Extracts from the Constitution (Forty-
fourth Amendment) Act, 1978
 Appendix IV – The Constitution (Eighty-sixth
Amendment) Act, 2002
 Appendix V – The Constitution (Eighty-eighth
Amendment) Act, 2003

Constitution and government

The executive, legislative and judicial branches of government receive their power
from the constitution and are bound by it.[55] With the aid of its constitution, India is
governed by a parliamentary system of government with the executive directly
accountable to the legislature. The president of India is head of the executive
branch, under Articles 52 and 53, with the duty of preserving, protecting and
defending the constitution and the law under Article 60. Article 74 provides for
a prime minister as head of the Council of Ministers, which aids and advises the
president in the performance of their constitutional duties. The council is answerable
to the lower house under Article 75(3).
The constitution is considered federal in nature, and unitary in spirit. It has features
of a federation (a codified, supreme constitution, a three-tier governmental structure
[central, state and local], division of powers, bicameralism and an
independent judiciary) and unitary features such as a single constitution,
single citizenship, an integrated judiciary, a flexible constitution, a strong central
government, appointment of state governors by the central government, All India
Services (the IAS, IFS and IPS) and emergency provisions. This unique combination
makes it quasi-federal in form.[56]
Each state and union territory has its own government. Analogous to the president
and prime minister, each has a governor or (in union territories) a lieutenant
governor and a chief minister. Article 356 permits the president to dismiss a state
government and assume direct authority if a situation arises in which state
government cannot be conducted in accordance with constitution. This power,
known as president's rule, was abused as state governments came to be dismissed