Important Constitutional Amendments (Part-I)

1. The First Amendment, 1951, was carried out to overcome certain practical difficulties related to the Fundamental Rights. It made a provision for special treatment of educationally and socially backward classes, and added the Ninth Schedule to the Constitution.

2. The Third Amendment, 1954, extended the powers of the Parliament by transferring certain items from the State List to the Concurrent List.

3. The Seventh Amendment, 1956, was necessitated on account of the re-organisation of states on a linguistic basis and introduced changes in the First and Fourth Schedules.

4. The Eighth Amendment, 1959, extended special provision for the reservation of seats for SCs, ST, and Anglo-Indians in the Lok Sabha and Legislative Assemblies for a period of 10 years, from 1960 to 1970.

5. The Ninth Amendment, 1960, gave effect to the transfer of certain territories to Pakistan, following the September 1958 Indo-Pak Agreement.

6. The Tenth Amendment, 1961, incorporated the territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli in the Indian Union.

7. The Twelfth Amendment, 1962, incorporated the territories of Goa, Daman and Diu in the Indian Union.

8. The Thirteenth Amendment, 1962, created Nagaland as a state of the Union of India.

9. The Fourteenth Amendment, 1963, incorporated the former French territory of Puducherry into the Union. 

10. The Eighteenth Amendment, 1966 was made to facilitate the re-organisation of Punjab on a linguistic basis into Punjab and Haryana, and also created the UT called Chandigarh.

11. The Twenty-first Amendment, 1967 included Sindhi as the 15th regional language in the Eighth Schedule.

12. The Twenty-second Amendment, 1969, created a sub-state of Meghalaya within Assam.

13. The Twenty-third Amendment, 1969, extended the reservation of seats for SC/STs and nomination of Anglo-Indians for a further period of 10 years (up to 1980).

14. The Twenty-sixth Amendment, 1971, abolished the titles and special privileges of former rulers of princely states.

15. The Twenty-seventh Amendment, 1971, provided for the establishment of the states of Manipur and Tripura and the formation of the UTs of Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh.

16. The Thirty-first Amendment, 1973, increased the elective strength of the Lok Sabha from 525 to 545.The upper limit of representatives of a state went up from 500 to 525.

17. The Thirty-sixth Amendment, 1975, made Sikkim a state of the Indian Union.

18. The Thirty-eighth Amendment, 1975, provided that the President can make a declaration of emergency, and the promulgation of ordinances by the President, Governors and administrative heads of UTs would be final and could not be challenged in any court. It also authorised the President to declare different kinds of emergencies at the same time.

19. The Thirty-ninth Amendment, 1975, decreed that the election of a person holding the office of the Prime Minister or Speaker and the election of the President and Vice-President cannot be challenged in any court.

20. The Forty-second Amendment, 1976, provided supremacy to the Parliament and gave primacy to the Directive Principles over the Fundamental Rights. It also added 10 Fundamental Duties in the Constitution. The Preamble of the Constitution was also altered from ‘Sovereign Democratic Republic’ to read ‘Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic’ and ‘Unity of the Nation’ to read ‘Unity and Integrity of the Nation’.

21. The Forty-fourth Amendment, 1978, restored the normal duration of the Lok Sabha and Legislative Assemblies to 5 years. The right to property was deleted from Part III. It also limited the power of the government to proclaim the internal emergency and corrected some distortions that had crept into the Constitution during the emergency.

22. The Forty-fifth Amendment, 1980, extended reservation for SC/ST by an additional 10 years (up to 1990).

23. The Fifty-second Amendment, 1985, inserted the Tenth Schedule in the Constitution regarding provisions for disqualification on the grounds of defection.