Constitution Day of India: Facts, History And Significance For UPSC Exam

Today’s edition of our Current Affairs will comprise a discussion on Constitution Day of India : Facts, history and significance For UPSC Exam. Read further to upgrade your UPSC CSE knowledge and also understand the topic’s relevance to the UPSC syllabus.

For Prelims: POLITY AND GOVERNANCE

Constitution Day, E-court Project, Virtual Justice Clock, JustIS Mobile App 2.0, Digital court, S3WaaS Websites.

For Mains: GS Paper II- Indian Constitution

About the E-court Project, About Constitution Day, Framing of the Constitution, Significance of the Constitution of India, Significant facts of the Indian Constitution.

Context

Recently at the 73rd Constitution Day celebrations in the Supreme Court, on 26th November 2022, the Indian Prime Minister launched various new initiatives under the e-court project. 

Probable Question

Explain the relevance of initiatives taken by the Government to commemorate Constitution day. (150 words, 10 marks)

About the E-court Project

• Objectives: To provide services to litigants, lawyers, and the judiciary through the ICT enablement of courts.
• The initiatives being launched by the Prime Minister, also includes the following initiatives under it:
  • Virtual Justice Clock:
    • It is an initiative to exhibit vital statistics of the justice delivery system at the Court level. 
    • It aims to make the functioning of the courts accountable and transparent. 
  • JustIS Mobile App 2.0: 
    • It is a tool available to judicial officers for effective court and case management. 
    • This App is also made available to High Court and Supreme Court Judges for monitoring the pendency and disposal of all the States and Districts under their jurisdiction.
  • Digital court: It is an initiative to make court records available to the judge in digitized form to enable the transition to Paperless Courts. 
  • S3WaaS Websites: 
    • It is a framework to generate, configure, deploy and manage websites for publishing specified information and services related to district judiciary.  
    • S3WaaS is a cloud service developed for government entities to generate Secure, Scalable & Sugamya (Accessible) websites. 
    • It is multilingual, citizen-friendly, and divyang-friendly.

Also Read: Political Participation of Persons with Disabilities

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About Constitution Day

• The day commemorates the adoption of the Indian Constitution by the Constituent Assembly on 26th November 1949, which came into effect on January 26, 1950 (commemorated as Republic day).
• Every year 26th November has been celebrated as Constitution Day since 2015.
• It is also named ‘Samvidhan Diwas’.
• The day is also observed as National Law Day.

Framing of the Constitution

• The constitution was framed by the Constituent Assembly, which took 11 months and 17 days to draft the constitution for Independent India.
• Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar was the chief architect of the Indian Constitution.
• Major Committees for the framing of the Constitution:
  • Drafting Committee: It was headed by B. R. Ambedkar
  • Union Power Committee, the Union Constitution Committee, and States Committee (Committee for Negotiating with States): These three committees were headed by Jawaharlal Nehru.
  • Provincial Constitution Committee and the Advisory Committee on Fundamental Rights, Minorities and Tribal and Excluded Areas: These two were headed by Vallabhbhai Patel.
  • Rules of Procedure Committee and Steering Committee: These two were headed by Rajendra Prasad.

Significance of the Constitution of India

• Bhartiya Samvidhan or Indian Constitution is the supreme law of India.
• It lays down the framework that demarcates fundamental political code, structure, procedures, powers, and duties of government institutions and sets out fundamental rights, directive principles, and the duties of citizens. 
• It imparts constitutional supremacy instead of parliamentary supremacy, which means Parliament cannot override the constitution.
• The constitution was adopted by the people, with a declaration in its preamble.

Also Read: Indian Acts Simplified Series - Understand Laws Better

Significant facts of the Indian Constitution

• It is the lengthiest Constitution in the World, but still, it remains as dynamic and relevant as ever, as it has a unique blend of rigidity and flexibility.
• The constitution replaced British India’s Government of India Act of 1935 and the Indian Independence Act of 1947.
• The original constitution is hand-written and took nearly five years to produce. 
• The original 1950 constitution is preserved in a nitrogen-filled case at the Parliament House in New Delhi
• During the 1976 Emergency, the words "secular" and "socialist" were added to the preamble by the 42nd amendment act.
• Dr. B.R. Ambedkar is recognized as the "Father of the Constitution of India".
• The constitution is borrowed from the constitution of a number of countries.

Important Topics: 

Conclusion

The Constitution is a transformative document for a nation, thus it is required to be imbibed by the citizens. As the citizens of the world’s largest democracy, it is incumbent upon us to know the ethos and content of the Constitution so as to meaningfully lay a claim over, and actualize, the guaranteed rights in practice.

News Source: The Indian Express, PIB

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/constitution-day-ambedkar-fundamental-rights-minorities-protection-8290465/

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