Advocate Jain said that in a recent verdict of a nine-judge Constitution bench, the majority view doubted the interpretation of the word “socialist” as propounded by former apex court judges Justices VR Krishna Iyer and O Chinnappa Reddy. Emergency in India was declared by the late PM Indira Gandhi from June 25, 1975 to March 21, 1977.The bench said, “The way we understand socialism in India is very different from other countries. In our context, socialism primarily means a welfare state. That is all. It has never prevented the private sector, which is thriving well. We have all benefited from it.” Justice Khanna said the word socialism was used in different contexts worldwide and in India it meant the state was a welfare one and must stand for the welfare of the people and should provide equality of opportunities. He said the top court held “secularism” to be part of the basic structure of the Constitution in the 1994 SR Bommai case.Another petitioner, Advocate Ashwini Upadhyay, said that he was not against the concepts of “socialism” and “secularism” but opposed to their insertion into the Preamble.The bench said Article 368 granted Parliament the power to amend the Constitution and it extended to the Preamble as well. “Preamble is a part and parcel of the Constitution,” the court said, making it clear that it will not go into the arguments that the Lok Sabha in 1976 could not have amended the Constitution and that amending the Preamble was a constituent power, exercised only by the Constituent Assembly.
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