Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar on Monday said the Preamble of the Indian Constitution is like parenthood to children. The Preamble of the Indian Constitution is “like how parents are to children as you cannot change parenthood, he said.
“There have been a lot of issues about the preamble to the Constitution. The Preamble of the Indian Constitution is something like parenthood to children. Howsoever you may try, you can’t change your parenthood. That is not possible,” Dhankar said while interacting with students and faculty at the National University of Advanced Legal Studies (NUALS), Kochi in Kerala.
Stating that, historically, no country’s preamble has ever been changed , the vice president said that the Preamble of the Indian Constitution was altered during the Emergency era when hundreds and thousands of people were behind bars.
“The preamble of our Constitution was changed during a time when hundreds and thousands of people were behind the bars. The darkest period of our democracy, the emergency era. Then it was changed where the life of the Lok Sabha was also increased beyond 5 years. It was changed at a time when people had no access to the justice system. Fundamental rights were totally suspended. You need to examine it. We may do anything, we surely can’t change our parents, ” Dhankar said.
Dhankhar’s statement highlighting the unalterable nature of the preamble of the Constitution comes against the backdrop of the RSS calling for a review of the words ‘socialist’ and ‘secular’ in the Preamble of the Constitution, stating that these were included during the Emergency and were never part of the Constitution drafted by BR Ambedkar.
Dhankar asked as to why lakhs of people were jailed without access to judiciary and he added that during the Emergency period the country forfeited the claim to be a democratic nation “You will have to think aloud what happened in 42nd Constitutional Amendment Act. What happened in 44th and what was left over? Why lakhs were jailed without access to judiciary? How come 9 High Courts decided in favour of the citizen but the Supreme Court, the highest court of the land failed us in ADM’s Jabalpur case. And reversed, indicating two things—-It is absolute prerogative of the executive to impose emergency and to impose emergency for as much time it takes. In 1975, it was 20 plus months, and during the proclamation of emergency period, there will be no access to Judiciary. So we forfeited at that point of time our total claim to be a democratic nation”, he said.
Underscoring the significance of doctrine of separation of powers, he said, “ Constitutional essence and spirit is optimally nurtured and sustained and it blossoms with each of the pillars of constitution working in tandem to get the nation in harmony but if the legislature, the executive and judiciary are not on the same page, if they are not in sync with each other, If there is no harmony amongst them, then the situation gets little worrisome. And that is why as law students you will be focusing on doctrine of separation of powers. The issue is not which is supreme. Each institution of the Constitution is supreme in its own area.”
“If one institution — the judiciary, the executive, or the legislature — makes an incursion into the domain of the other, it has the potential to upset the apple cart. It can create unmanageable problems that can be potentially very dangerous for our democracy,” he said.
He said the country had turbulent times in the judiciary recently,but things are changing, the nation is seeing good times now for the judiciary.
“We had turbulent times in the judiciary recently. But the good thing — and soothing — is that a big change has taken place. We are seeing good times now for the judiciary. The present Chief Justice and his immediate predecessor gave us a new era of accountability and transparency. They are getting things back on the rails. But the earlier two years were very disturbing, very challenging. The normal system was not normal. Thoughtlessly, several steps were taken — it will take a while to undo them. Because it is very fundamental that institutions function with optimal performance”, the vice president said.
The vice president said the proceeding with the Constitutional mechanism of dealing with the judge in terms of constitutional provision is one way out, but that is not a solution because we claim to be a democracy which we are. “ The world looks at us as a mature democracy where there has to be rule of law, equality before law which means every crime must be investigated. If the money is so huge in volume, we have to find out. Is it tainted money? What is the source of this money? How was it stocked in the official residence of a judge? It belonged to whom? Several penal provisions are violated in the process. I do hope an FIR will be registered. We must go to the root of the matter because for democracy it matters, that our judiciary in whom the faith is unshakable, it’s very foundations have been shaken. The citadel is tottering because of this incident,”he said.