LAXMIKANT POLITY NOTES:
📌A SECULAR STATE
🔸The Constitution of India stands for a Secular State. Hence, it does not uphold any particular religion as the official religion of the Indian State.
The following provisions of the Constitution reveal the secular character of the Indian State:
🔸The term ‘secular’ was added to the Preamble of the Indian Constitution by the 42nd Constitutional Amendment Act of 1976.
🔸The Preamble secures to all citizens of India liberty of belief,Faith and worship.
🔸The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or equal protection of the laws (Article 14).
🔸The State shall not discriminate against any citizen on the ground of religion (Article 15).
🔸Equality of opportunity for all citizens in matters of public employment (Article 16).
📌UNIVERSAL ADULT FRANCHISE :
🔸The Indian Constitution adopts universal adult franchise as a basis of elections to the Lok Sabha and the state legislative assemblies.
🔸Every citizen who is not less than 18 years of age has a right to vote without any discrimination of caste, race, religion, sex, literacy, wealth and so on.
🔸 The voting age was reduced to 18
years from 21 years in 1989 by the 61st Constitutional Amendment Act of 1988.
📌SINGLE CITIZENSHIP
🔸Though the Indian Constitution is federal and envisages a dual polity (Centre and states), it provides for only a single citizenship, that is, the Indian citizenship.
🔸In countries like USA, on the other hand, each person is not only a citizen of USA, but also a citizen of the particular state to which he belongs.
🔸Thus, he owes allegiance to both and enjoys dual sets of rights–one conferred by the National government and another by the state government.
📌 INDEPENDENT BODIES
🔸The Indian Constitution not only provides for the legislative, executive and judicial organs of the Government (Central and state) but also establishes certain independent bodies.
🔸 They are envisaged by the Constitution as the bulkworks of the democratic system of Government in India
📌EMERGENCY PROVISIONS
🔸The Indian Constitution contains elaborate emergency provisions to enable the President to meet any extraordinary situation effectively.
🔸 The rationality behind the
incorporation of these provisions is to safeguard the sovereignty, unity, integrity and security of the country, the democratic political system and the
Constitution.
🔸The Constitution envisages three types of emergencies, namely:
(a) National emergency on the ground of war or external aggression or armed rebellion16 (Article 352);
(b) State emergency (President’s Rule) on the ground of failure of Constitutional machinery in the states (Article 356) or
failure to comply with the directions of the Centre (Article 365); and
(c) Financial emergency on the ground of threat to the financial stability or credit of India (Article 360).
📌THREE- TIER GOVERNMENT
🔸Originally, the Indian Constitution, like any other federal Constitution, provided for a dual polity and containedprovisions with regard to the organisation and powers of the Centre and the states.
🔸Later, the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment Acts(1992) have added a third-tier of Government (i.e., local) which iS not found in any other Constitution of the world.
📌 CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES
🔸The 97th Constitutional Amendment Act of 2011 gave a constitutional status and protection to co-operative societies. In this context, it made the following three changes in the Constitution:
🔸 It made the right to form co-operative societies a fundamental right (Article 19).
🔸 It included a new Directive Principle of State Policy on promotion of co-operative societies (Article 43-B).
🔸 It added a new Part IX-B in the Constitution which is entitled as “The Co-operative Societies” (Articles 243-ZH to 243-ZT).
