Thirty-ninth Amendment of the Constitution of India

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Preamble
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Related topics Union List State List Concurrent List Basic structure doctrine

The Thirty-ninth Amendment of the Constitution of India, enacted on 10 August 1975, placed the election of the President, the Vice President, the Prime Minister and the Speaker of the Lok Sabha beyond the scrutiny of the Indian courts. It was passed during the Emergency of 1975-1977.^[1] It was moved by the Congress government headed by Indira Gandhi to preempt a hearing by Supreme Court of India concerning the setting aside of Gandhi's election by the Allahabad High Court on the grounds of corrupt electoral practices.

Background

Indira Gandhi was accused by Raj Narain for misusing the state machinery during her election polls.

After that, the Allahabad High court did find her guilty and barred her from contesting in future elections and demanded her removal from the Lok Sabha. But Indira Gandhi moved ahead to declare a state of emergency and began her rule by decree.

During this time period, Indira Gandhi pushed for the thirty ninth amendment act to secure her position and prevent her removal from Indian politics. She also went ahead bringing about the forty second amendment act that introduced clause four and five of the article 368 to remove all restriction regarding the amendment power of the parliament and for such amendments not to be contestable in any court of law in India.

Later on in the Minerva Mills v. Union of India case, this amendment was removed and the doctrine of basic structure was reinforced from the Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala case.

References

The Emergency of 1975–77
Personalities	Indira Gandhi Jayaprakash Narayan Siddhartha Shankar Ray Jivatram Kripalani Morarji Desai Atal Bihari Vajpayee K. Kamaraj M. G. Ramachandran M. Karunanidhi C. Achutha Menon K. Karunakaran Harcharan Singh Longowal Lal Krishna Advani Charan Singh Jagjivan Ram Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Sanjay Gandhi Pranab Mukherjee Jagmohan Bansi Lal Zail Singh Devakanta Barua Jagmohanlal Sinha Hans Raj Khanna H. N. Bahuguna Raj Narain George Fernandes Neelam Sanjiva Reddy
Organisations	Indian National Congress (R) Indian National Congress Janata Morcha Janata Party Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Dravidar Kazhagam Indian National Congress (Organisation) Shiromani Akali Dal Bharatiya Jana Sangh Swatantra Party Bharatiya Lok Dal Socialist Party of India Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Communist Party of India (Marxist) People's Union for Civil Liberties
Events	State of Emergency in India State of Uttar Pradesh v. Raj Narain 38th Amendment 39th Amendment 42nd Amendment Turkman gate demolition and rioting Baroda dynamite case Shah Commission Maintenance of Internal Security Act Rajan case Indian general election, 1977