'Socialism' in India means 'social welfare state': Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: The issue of the legality of the insertion of 'socialism' in the Preamble of the Constitution through the 42nd amendment during the infamous Emergency, which has simmered for decades, will be decided on Monday. Supreme Court on Friday reserved its order on petitions challenging the changes in the Preamble to put 'socialism' and 'secularism' in it in 1976, even while making plain its disinclination to intervene saying 'socialism' in the Indian context meant "social welfare state".

Advocate Vishnu Jain cited the recent judgment of a nine-judge SC bench, in which the court had said during the nascent years of the nation, the country had followed the mixed economy model, which in the 1960s and 70s gave way to to a socialist pattern. "Since the decade of the 1990s, or the liberalisation years, there has been a shift towards pursuing a policy of market-based reforms," it had said.

Jain said the nine-judge bench had ruled against imposition of a particular economic ideology, for example socialism, and argued that since the Preamble too formed part of the basic structure of the Constitution, it could not have been amended by Parliament in 1976 in violation of the 13-judge bench 'basic structure' ruling in Kesavananda Bharati case. Similar arguments were advanced by Subramanian Swamy and advocates Ashwini Upadhyay and Alakh A Srivastava.

However, a bench of Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar said, "The way we understand socialism in India is different from the way it is understood in other parts of the world."

The CJI said, "In India, it means a welfare state. Despite the inclusion of the word 'socialism' in the Preamble of our Constitution, we have turned to privatisation and benefited from it. But we have also focussed on equal opportunity for every citizen. So, why should the court go into the validity of inclusion of 'socialism' in the Preamble?"

The CJI-led bench said the 1976 constitutional amendment has not prevented courts from striking down many legislations.

In favour of the amendment inserting 'socialism' in the Preamble, the bench said, "Power under 168 of the Constitution (to amend the Constitution) extends to amending the Preamble, which is part and parcel of the Constitution." When arguments were advanced that Preamble too was part of the basic structure, which could not have been amended, SC asked, "Who says Preamble is part of basic structure?"


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