{"id":213290,"date":"2022-11-07T19:27:14","date_gmt":"2022-11-07T13:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=213290"},"modified":"2022-11-07T19:27:14","modified_gmt":"2022-11-07T13:57:14","slug":"first-amendment-to-constitution-challenged-what-happened-in-sc-in-1950-that-provoked-nehru-to-amend-article-192","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/first-amendment-to-constitution-challenged-what-happened-in-sc-in-1950-that-provoked-nehru-to-amend-article-192\/","title":{"rendered":"First amendment to Constitution challenged: What happened in SC in 1950 that provoked Nehru to amend Article 19(2)?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source: <\/b>The post is based on the article<\/span> \u201cFirst amendment to Constitution challenged: What happened in SC in 1950 that provoked Nehru to amend Article 19(2)?<\/b>\u201d <\/b>published in <\/span>The Hindu <\/b>on 7th November 2022.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

What is the News?<\/b><\/h5>\n

The Supreme Court has agreed to examine a plea challenging the expansion of restrictions to the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression that was made by the first amendment to the Constitution.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What was the Constitution First Amendment Act, 1951?<\/b><\/h5>\n

The First Amendment was passed in 1951 by the Provisional Parliament, members of who had just finished drafting the Constitution as part of the Constitutional Assembly.<\/span><\/p>\n

It sought to make several consequential changes \u2014 from exempting land reforms from scrutiny to providing protections for backward classes in the Constitution. It also expanded on the scope of the restrictions on the right to free speech.<\/span><\/p>\n

What changes did the First Amendment make to the right to free speech (Article 19)? <\/b><\/p>\n

The first amendment made two key changes:<\/span><\/p>\n

First, it introduced the qualification \u201creasonable<\/strong>\u201d to the restrictions that Article 19(2) imposed. The insertion of the term \u201creasonable\u201d keeps the door open for the courts to step in and examine the legitimacy of the restrictions imposed by Parliament.<\/span><\/p>\n

Second, the amendment introduced into the Constitution the specific terms \u201cpublic order<\/strong>\u201d and \u201cincitement to an offense<\/strong>\u201d. This set of new narrower terms in the provision was necessitated by two Supreme Court rulings in 1950, that went against the state\u2019s power to curb free speech.<\/span><\/p>\n

What were these two verdicts passed by the Supreme Court?<\/b><\/h5>\n

Romesh Thapar Case: <\/b>In 1949, the Madras government banned \u2018Cross Roads\u2019, a left-leaning magazine, for its criticism of the government\u2019s foreign policy. This led to the first significant free speech ruling by the Supreme Court in <\/span>Romesh Thappar v State of Madras<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The petitioner had challenged Section 9(1-A) of the Madras Maintenance of Public Order Act, 1949 as unconstitutional. This provision authorized the government to impose restrictions for the wider purpose of securing \u201cpublic safety\u201d or the \u201cmaintenance of public order\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

The court examined whether these provisions fell within the scope of the restrictions allowed in Article 19(2). The government argued that the words \u201cundermining the security of the State\u201d in Article 19(2) could be equated with \u201cpublic safety\u201d and \u201cmaintenance of public order.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In its majority opinion in the case, the court disagreed with the government and struck down the provision as unconstitutional.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Brij Bhushan Case: <\/b>In 1950, the Chief Commissioner of Delhi issued a \u201cpre-censorship order\u201d on the RSS mouthpiece \u2018Organiser\u2019 which too was critical of the government.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Its publisher challenged Section 7(1)(c) of the East Punjab Public Safety Act, which allowed pre-publication scrutiny of material \u201cprejudicial to public safety or the maintenance of public order\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Supreme Court struck down the provision as unconstitutional. The court held that the<\/span> pre-censorship of a journal was an unreasonable restriction on the liberty of the press.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: The post is based on the article \u201cFirst amendment to Constitution challenged: What happened in SC in 1950 that provoked Nehru to amend Article 19(2)?\u201d published in The Hindu on 7th November 2022.\u00a0 What is the News? The Supreme Court has agreed to examine a plea challenging the expansion of restrictions to the fundamental… Continue reading First amendment to Constitution challenged: What happened in SC in 1950 that provoked Nehru to amend Article 19(2)?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10317,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1566,1760,9],"tags":[10498],"class_list":["post-213290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-factly-articles","category-polity-and-nation","category-public","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}