Overview
Previous Year UPSC-CSE Questions By the end you will be able to draft model answers for the following UPSC questions. Each question carries a collapsible framework showing how to approach it in the exam.
- UPSC Mains 2014 GS-IIStarting from inventing the ‘basic structure’ doctrine, the judiciary has played a highly proactive role in ensuring that India develops into a thriving democracy. In light of the statement, evaluate the role played by judicial activism in achieving the ideals of democracy.
How to structure the answer in the exam
Introduction: Open with the basic structure doctrine as the judiciary's chief instrument for defending democracy.
Body (sub-themes to develop):
- The doctrine: Kesavananda Bharati 1973 holding the core of the Constitution unamendable.
- The low point: the ADM Jabalpur case, where the court failed to protect liberty under the Emergency.
- The recovery: Minerva Mills 1980 striking down the 42nd Amendment's curbs and securing judicial review.
- The balance: judicial activism as a guard of democracy, with the caution that it must respect the separation of powers.
Conclusion: Conclude that judicial activism, anchored in the basic structure doctrine, has been a vital but self-limiting guard of Indian democracy.
- UPSC Prelims 2019 GS Paper IConsider the following statements :
- The 44th Amendment to the Constitution of India introduced an Article placing the election of the Prime Minister beyond judicial review.
- The Supreme Court of India struck down the 99th Amendment to the Constitution of India as being violative of the independence of judiciary.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
How to approach this Prelims question
Approach: Test each statement against the Emergency-era and post-Emergency amendments.
Trap to watch: It was the 39th Amendment that placed the Prime Minister's election beyond review; the 44th Amendment reversed Emergency excesses.
Key facts to recall:
- The 39th Amendment of 1975 placed the PM's election beyond judicial review
- The 44th Amendment of 1978 reversed Emergency excesses
- The Supreme Court struck down the 99th Amendment on judicial independence
Answer signal: Statement 2 only, so option (b).
- UPSC Prelims 2017 GS Paper IWhich principle among the following was added to the Directive Principles of State Policy by the 42nd Amendment to the Constitution?
How to approach this Prelims question
Approach: Recall which directive principle the 42nd Amendment added.
Trap to watch: Equal pay, the right to work and a living wage were part of the original directive principles; worker participation in management (Article 43A) was the 42nd Amendment addition.
Key facts to recall:
- The 42nd Amendment of 1976 added Article 43A
- Article 43A concerns the participation of workers in the management of industries
- Equal pay and the living wage were in the original Part IV
Answer signal: Participation of workers in management, so option (b).
The Emergency 1975-77 was the gravest crisis of the republic's democracy, the one period in which constitutional rule was suspended from within. Proclaimed under Article 352 on 25 June 1975, it saw fundamental rights suspended, the press censored, opponents detained without trial and the Constitution itself recast by the 42nd Amendment. It ended in 1977 with an election that brought the first change of power at the centre, after which the 44th Amendment built safeguards against its return. This part follows the Emergency as a constitutional episode, the country's hardest test of democracy and its recovery from it.
The Emergency: The Republic's Gravest Test of Democracy
Why the Suspension of Democracy from Within Was the Hardest Test
Why this matters: India had weathered wars, partitions and insurgencies, but the Emergency of 1975 to 1977 posed a different kind of danger, the suspension of democracy not by an external enemy but by the constitutional government itself. For twenty-one months the ordinary working of rights, the press and the opposition was set aside, and the question of whether Indian democracy could survive and correct such a turn was answered only at the end.
What is the significance of the Emergency: It was the supreme test of the republic's constitutional order. It showed how far the safeguards of 1950 could be stretched, exposed the weaknesses that allowed rights to be suspended, and then, through an election and a set of amendments, demonstrated the capacity of the system to repair itself. This part treats the Emergency as a constitutional episode, balancing the record of its excesses with the story of the democratic recovery that followed.
The Road to the Emergency: The JP Movement and the Crisis of 1974-75
How Economic Distress and a Mass Movement Built a Wider Crisis
Distinguishing the gathering crisis: The Emergency did not come out of a clear sky. The early 1970s brought severe economic distress, high inflation after the oil shock, unemployment and shortages, and a deepening discontent with the government. Popular agitations rose in Gujarat and in Bihar, and a nationwide railway strike in 1974 signalled the scale of the unrest; the political temperature climbed through the year.
The agitations found a national leader. The veteran socialist Jayaprakash Narayan, widely known as JP, gave the scattered movements a common voice, calling for a 'Total Revolution' to cleanse public life and even appealing to the army and police to refuse unlawful orders. The opposition, long divided, began to coalesce around him, and the confrontation between a mass movement and the government sharpened into a constitutional crisis.
Observable outcome: By the middle of 1975 the country faced a wide and determined opposition movement on one side and a government under mounting pressure on the other. The stage was set for a collision, and it was a judicial verdict, rather than the street, that finally precipitated the turn to Emergency rule.
The Allahabad Verdict and the Trigger of June 1975
How a Court Judgment Set Off the Final Crisis
Distinguishing the immediate trigger: On 12 June 1975 the Allahabad High Court, in a case brought by a defeated rival, found the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi guilty of electoral malpractice and set aside her election to the Lok Sabha, barring her from office for a period. The judgment, though it concerned technical electoral grounds, struck at the head of the government and threw the political situation into immediate crisis.
The verdict was met with a partial reprieve and a hardening. The Supreme Court granted a conditional stay that allowed the Prime Minister to remain in office pending appeal but limited her voting rights in Parliament, an arrangement that satisfied neither side. With the opposition pressing for resignation and a general strike threatened, the government chose, instead of accommodation, to advise the proclamation of a national emergency.
Observable outcome: A dispute over an election thus became the trigger for the suspension of democratic government itself. The narrowness of the original cause, a finding of electoral malpractice, stood in stark contrast to the breadth of the response, and the gap between the two is part of what has made the Emergency so closely studied as a constitutional turning point.
The Proclamation of 25 June 1975
How a National Emergency Was Declared on the Ground of Internal Disturbance
Distinguishing the constitutional act: In the night of 25 June 1975 the President, on the advice of the cabinet, proclaimed a national emergency under Article 352 of the Constitution on the ground of 'internal disturbance'. It was the third emergency of the republic, but the first proclaimed on internal rather than external grounds, the earlier emergencies of 1962 and 1971 having arisen from war. The proclamation concentrated power at the centre and in the executive.
The legal architecture gave the government sweeping authority. Under the emergency the federal balance tilted sharply towards the union, the term of the Lok Sabha could be extended, and, crucially, the enforcement of fundamental rights could be suspended, opening the way to detention without trial and to rule by ordinance and decree. The figure below traces the course of the period from the crisis to the restoration.
Observable outcome: The proclamation transformed the constitutional landscape overnight, converting a parliamentary democracy into a tightly centralised government able to rule with few of the ordinary checks. That so sweeping a change could follow lawfully from the emergency provisions of the Constitution itself became the central lesson the country would later act upon.
The Suspension of Rights and the ADM Jabalpur Case
How the Courts Faced the Suspension of the Right to Life and Liberty
Distinguishing the constitutional low point: The gravest feature of the Emergency was the suspension of the enforcement of fundamental rights, including the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21. With the courts barred from entertaining challenges, those detained had, in effect, no remedy, and the question of whether any right survived the suspension came before the Supreme Court in the case of ADM Jabalpur against Shivkant Shukla in 1976, the Habeas Corpus case.
The court's answer was its most criticised judgment. The majority held that during the Emergency a person had no right to approach the courts even against unlawful detention, since the right to move the court for the enforcement of Article 21 itself stood suspended. Against this stood the lone dissent of Justice H. R. Khanna, who held that the right to life and liberty could not be extinguished even by an emergency, a dissent that cost him the office of Chief Justice but was vindicated by history.
Observable outcome: The ADM Jabalpur judgment marked the lowest point of the constitutional protection of liberty in independent India, and the lesson it taught, that the right to life must never again be left wholly at the mercy of an emergency, was written directly into the safeguards adopted after 1977. The case is studied as a warning of how far the suspension of rights can reach.
Censorship, Detentions and the Excesses of the Period
How Press Control, Preventive Detention and Other Measures Were Used
Distinguishing the measures of the period: With rights suspended, the government used its powers widely. Press censorship was imposed, requiring prior approval of news and silencing critical reporting; opposition leaders, activists and many others were placed in preventive detention without trial under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act, the MISA; and political activity was severely curtailed. The figure that follows sets out the machinery of the period.
The period also saw programmes that became coercive. A drive for family planning turned, in places, into a campaign of compulsory sterilisation that fell hardest on the poor, and slum-clearance and beautification schemes led to forced evictions; the human cost of these measures, widely documented and later inquired into by the Shah Commission, is treated here in general terms rather than in figures. These excesses, more than the constitutional changes, fixed the Emergency in popular memory.
Observable outcome: The combination of censored news, detention without trial and coercive programmes meant that the ordinary citizen felt the Emergency as a direct loss of freedom. It was the memory of these months, more than any argument of constitutional theory, that shaped the verdict the electorate would deliver when at last it was given the chance.
The 42nd Amendment: The 'Mini Constitution'
How the Constitution Itself Was Recast During the Emergency
Distinguishing the constitutional recasting: The most lasting act of the Emergency was the 42nd Amendment of 1976, so sweeping that it is called the mini-constitution. It added the words 'socialist' and 'secular' to the Preamble, introduced a set of Fundamental Duties, added new directive principles such as the participation of workers in management, and gave the directive principles a degree of primacy over fundamental rights.
It also sought to curb the courts and entrench the government. The amendment tried to place certain constitutional amendments beyond judicial review, to limit the power of the courts to strike down laws, and it extended the term of the Lok Sabha and the assemblies from five years to six. Taken together, its provisions shifted power decisively from the judiciary and the rights of the citizen towards the executive and the directive principles of policy.
Observable outcome: The 42nd Amendment showed how the amending power itself could be turned against the constitutional balance, and much of the work of the years that followed was the careful undoing of its overreach. Some of its additions, the words socialist and secular and the Fundamental Duties among them, were retained, while its attempts to weaken judicial review and the rights of the citizen were reversed.
The Election of 1977 and the Janata Interlude
How an Election Ended the Emergency and Changed Power at the Centre
Distinguishing the democratic turn: Early in 1977 the government, confident or perhaps misreading the public mood, lifted the harshest restrictions and called a general election. The opposition parties, many of whose leaders were released from detention, came together as the Janata Party to fight it as a single force, and the campaign turned on the record of the Emergency itself.
The verdict was decisive. The electorate voted the governing party out of power for the first time since independence, and the Janata government took office in 1977, the first non-Congress government at the centre. The new government appointed the Shah Commission to inquire into the actions of the Emergency, and it set about reversing the constitutional changes of the previous two years.
Observable outcome: The election of 1977 was the decisive answer to the Emergency, and its significance lay less in the particular government it produced, for the Janata coalition proved short-lived, than in the demonstration that the Indian electorate could and would end an authoritarian turn through the ballot. The peaceful change of power showed that the roots of democracy had gone deeper than the Emergency had supposed.
The 44th Amendment: Safeguards Against Another Emergency
How the Constitution Was Repaired to Prevent a Repetition
Distinguishing the constitutional repair: The Janata government's most enduring achievement was the 44th Amendment of 1978, which set out to make a repetition of the Emergency far harder. It replaced 'internal disturbance' as a ground for a national emergency with the stricter test of armed rebellion, required the advice for a proclamation to be given in writing by the cabinet, and provided for closer parliamentary control over its continuance.
It placed the most basic rights beyond reach. The amendment provided that the rights under Articles 20 and 21, the protections in respect of conviction and of life and personal liberty, could not be suspended even during an emergency, directly answering the failure exposed by the ADM Jabalpur case. It also reversed the attempts of the 42nd Amendment to curb the courts, restoring the power of judicial review over the actions of the state.
Observable outcome: The deeper safeguard, however, lay in the basic structure doctrine. The Supreme Court, in the Kesavananda Bharati case of 1973 and then decisively in Minerva Mills of 1980, held that the core of the Constitution, including democracy, judicial review and the limited amending power, could not be amended away, so that even a future government with a large majority could not lawfully repeat the constitutional overreach of the Emergency.
Significance: Democracy's Self-Correction and the Lessons of the Emergency
How the Republic Learned from Its Gravest Constitutional Crisis
The larger significance of the Emergency is that Indian democracy was tested to its limits and survived, and that it corrected itself not through another upheaval but through the ordinary instruments of democracy, the election, the amendment and the judgment of the courts. The episode revealed the fragility of constitutional safeguards under a determined government, but it revealed too the depth of the democratic habit among the people, who used the first opportunity to restore the rule they had lost.
Contemporary linkages keep the Emergency at the centre of constitutional debate. The limits of the emergency power, the protection of fundamental rights, the independence of the judiciary and the freedom of the press are all live questions, each shaped by the lessons of these twenty-one months, and the basic structure doctrine remains the ultimate guard the period bequeathed.
| Measure | The 42nd Amendment, 1976 | The 44th Amendment, 1978 |
|---|---|---|
| Ground for emergency | Retained 'internal disturbance' | Replaced it with 'armed rebellion' |
| Term of the legislature | Extended from five years to six | Restored the five-year term |
| Rights in an emergency | Allowed wide suspension of rights | Made Articles 20 and 21 non-suspendable |
| The courts | Sought to curb judicial review | Restored the power of judicial review |
The deeper lesson is that the safeguards of a constitution are only as strong as the vigilance that defends them, and that the surest protection of democracy is a citizenry willing to call its rulers to account at the ballot. The next part turns to the wider evolution of the Constitution, of which the Emergency and its repair form the most dramatic chapter.
- Severe economic distress and the JP movement built a wide opposition before the Emergency.
- The Allahabad verdict of 12 June 1975 against the Prime Minister’s election triggered the proclamation of 25 June 1975.
- Rights were suspended, the press censored and opponents detained; the ADM Jabalpur case was the constitutional low point.
- The 42nd Amendment of 1976 recast the Constitution; the election of 1977 brought the first change of power.
- The 44th Amendment of 1978 and the basic structure doctrine built safeguards against another Emergency.
Prelims MCQ practice
Each question below tests one specific concept on the topic. Click to reveal the answer and a full option-wise explanation.
Q1. The national emergency of 1975 was proclaimed under which article of the Constitution, and on what ground?
- Article 356, on the failure of constitutional machinery in a state
- Article 352, on the ground of internal disturbance
- Article 360, on the ground of a threat to financial stability
- Article 365, on the failure to comply with union directions
Show answer and explanation
Answer: Article 352, on the ground of internal disturbance
Explanation.
Option (b) is correct. The Emergency of 25 June 1975 was proclaimed under Article 352 on the ground of internal disturbance, the first national emergency on internal rather than external grounds. Hence option (b).
Q2. The ADM Jabalpur case of 1976, the Habeas Corpus case, is best remembered for which of the following?
- It upheld the right to property during the Emergency
- Its majority held that the right to move the court for enforcement of Article 21 stood suspended
- It struck down the proclamation of Emergency
- It introduced the basic structure doctrine
Show answer and explanation
Answer: Its majority held that the right to move the court for enforcement of Article 21 stood suspended
Explanation.
Option (b) is correct. In ADM Jabalpur the majority held that during the Emergency a person could not approach the court even against unlawful detention, as the right to enforce Article 21 was suspended; Justice Khanna dissented. Hence option (b).
Q3. Consider the following statements about the 42nd Amendment of 1976:
- It added the words 'socialist' and 'secular' to the Preamble.
- It introduced a set of Fundamental Duties.
- It extended the term of the Lok Sabha from five years to six.
Which of the statements given above are correct?
- 1 and 2 only
- 2 and 3 only
- 1 and 3 only
- 1, 2 and 3
Show answer and explanation
Answer: 1, 2 and 3
Explanation.
All three are correct: the 42nd Amendment added 'socialist' and 'secular' to the Preamble, introduced Fundamental Duties, and extended the Lok Sabha term from five to six years. Hence option (d).
Q4. The 44th Amendment of 1978 replaced 'internal disturbance' as a ground for a national emergency with which of the following?
- External aggression
- Armed rebellion
- Financial instability
- Failure of constitutional machinery
Show answer and explanation
Answer: Armed rebellion
Explanation.
Option (b) is correct. The 44th Amendment replaced 'internal disturbance' with the stricter ground of 'armed rebellion', making a national emergency harder to proclaim. Hence option (b).
Q5. Consider the following statements about the 44th Amendment of 1978:
- It provided that the rights under Articles 20 and 21 cannot be suspended during an emergency.
- It restored the power of judicial review curbed by the 42nd Amendment.
- It was enacted by the Janata government after the Emergency.
Which of the statements given above are correct?
- 1 and 2 only
- 2 and 3 only
- 1 and 3 only
- 1, 2 and 3
Show answer and explanation
Answer: 1, 2 and 3
Explanation.
All three are correct: the 44th Amendment made Articles 20 and 21 non-suspendable, restored judicial review, and was enacted by the Janata government after the Emergency. Hence option (d).
Q6. The lone dissent in the ADM Jabalpur case, holding that the right to life and liberty could not be extinguished even during an emergency, was delivered by which judge?
- Justice A. N. Ray
- Justice H. R. Khanna
- Justice P. N. Bhagwati
- Justice Y. V. Chandrachud
Show answer and explanation
Answer: Justice H. R. Khanna
Explanation.
Option (b) is correct. Justice H. R. Khanna delivered the lone dissent in ADM Jabalpur, holding that the right to life and liberty survived the Emergency; the dissent cost him the office of Chief Justice but was later vindicated. Hence option (b).
Sources and Further Reading
- NCERT, Politics in India since Independence (Class 12)
- NCERT, Indian Constitution at Work (Class 11)
- Wikipedia: The Emergency (India)
- Wikipedia: Forty-second Amendment of the Constitution of India
- Wikipedia: Forty-fourth Amendment of the Constitution of India
- Wikipedia: ADM Jabalpur v. Shivkant Shukla
- India Code: The Constitution of India
- Press Information Bureau, Government of India
- Legislative Department, Ministry of Law and Justice
- National Portal of India
Editorial Disclaimer
This article is prepared for civil services preparation. It treats a sensitive period as a constitutional episode, with the human cost stated in general terms; verify details against standard reference works before relying on them.
