Why so many amendments: technical, interpretive and consensus changes

Detail

1. The count and its pattern

• Amendment means a formal change to the text of the Constitution. Parliament makes it under Article 368.
• 106 amendments in 74 years, counted up to 26 January 2024.
• The 106th Amendment Act, 2023 is still the latest.
• It is also called the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam. It reserves one-third of seats for women in the Lok Sabha, the state assemblies and the Delhi assembly [3][4].
• The vote in the Lok Sabha was 454 for and 2 against. The Rajya Sabha passed it unanimously [3].

• The reservation starts only after a delimitation (redrawing of constituency boundaries). That delimitation must use the first census taken after the Act. The reservation then lasts 15 years [4].

• There was no 107th Amendment as of October 2026.

• The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026 was introduced in the Lok Sabha on 16 April 2026. It dealt with delimitation and proposed raising the maximum Lok Sabha strength from 550 to 850 [5].

• It was negatived (defeated) on 17 April 2026, so it never became an Act [5].

• Pattern shown in NCERT's graphs:

• A surge between 1970 and 1990.
• Ten amendments in 1974–76, when Congress dominated with 352 Lok Sabha seats.
• Ten more in 2001–03, in a coalition era with bitter rivalry between parties.

• A steady flow in every decade after the first.

• Lesson: how often the Constitution is amended does not depend on the size of the ruling majority. NCERT's cartoon makes the point: look at what was changed, not how many times.

• Bill number ≠ Act number. A bill gets a number when it is introduced. Many bills fail, so the numbers do not match. For example, the 126th Amendment Bill (2019) became the 104th Amendment Act [2], and the 128th Bill (2023) became the 106th Act [4].

2. Three kinds of amendment (NCERT's classification)

Type	What it does	Real effect
Technical / administrative	Clarifies, explains or extends an existing rule	Little real change
Differing interpretations	Parliament responds when courts read the Constitution differently	Major clashes, 1970–75
Political consensus	Reforms that all major parties agree on	Big change, little conflict

3. Technical and administrative amendments

These are changes on paper with little real effect.

• 15th Constitutional Amendment Act, 1963: raised the retirement age of High Court judges from 60 to 62 (Art. 217).
• 54th Constitutional Amendment Act, 1986:
• raised the salaries of Supreme Court and High Court judges;

• let Parliament revise their salaries by ordinary law (a normal bill passed by simple majority), so a constitutional amendment is no longer needed each time.

• Extensions of SC/ST seat reservation (Art. 334):

• Art. 334 sets an end date for reserved seats for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies.
• The end date has been pushed back by ten years each time it came close.

Amendment	Year	Reservation extended to
8th	1959	1970
23rd	1969	1980
45th	1980	1990
62nd	1989	2000
79th	1999	2010
95th	2009	2020
104th	2019	25 January 2030

• That makes seven extensions (NCERT: six, because the chapter was written before 2019).

• 104th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2019:

• It was introduced as the 126th Bill on 9 December 2019. The Lok Sabha passed it on 10 December and the Rajya Sabha on 12 December 2019 [2].
• It moved the end date for SC/ST seats from 25 January 2020 to 25 January 2030 [2].

• It did not extend the nomination of Anglo-Indians to the Lok Sabha (Art. 331) and the state assemblies (Art. 333). So that nomination ended in January 2020.

• Art. 74(1), counted by NCERT as an "explanation" amendment:

• The 42nd Amendment (1976) made the advice of the Council of Ministers binding on the President ("shall act in accordance with such advice").
• The 44th Amendment (1978) let the President send the advice back once for reconsideration. After that, the President must accept it.

4. Amendments from differing interpretations

• Cause: between 1970 and 1975, the judiciary (courts) and Parliament read the Constitution differently on three questions:
• Fundamental Rights vs Directive Principles (which comes first: the citizen's rights, or the state's goals such as reducing inequality);
• the right to property (land reform and the amount of compensation);

• the scope of the amending power (can Parliament change any part, including Fundamental Rights?).

• The cycle:

• The court strikes down a law or limits Parliament's power, as in Golaknath (1967).
• Parliament passes an amendment to undo the ruling: the 24th and 25th (1971), and later the 42nd (1976).

• The court sets a final limit: in Kesavananda Bharati (1973) it held that Parliament can amend any part of the Constitution but cannot destroy its core features. This limit is called the basic structure (§§5–7).

• Many amendments of the 1974–76 surge belong to this type.

5. Amendments from political consensus (mainly after 1984)

NCERT's exercise 7(e) notes that the 2000–03 amendments were non-controversial and agreed across parties.

Area	Amendment	Change
Anti-defection	52nd (1985)	Added the Tenth Schedule (anti-defection law). A member who leaves their party, or votes against its orders, can lose their seat.
	91st (2003)	Removed the split exception and capped the size of the ministry at 15% (see below)
Voting age	61st (1988)	Lowered from 21 to 18 (Art. 326)
Local government	73rd and 74th (1992)	Panchayats (Part IX, 11th Schedule) and municipalities (Part IXA, 12th Schedule)
Reservation	77th (1995)	Art. 16(4A): reservation in promotions for SCs/STs
	81st (2000)	Art. 16(4B): unfilled reserved posts (the backlog) can be carried forward to later years as a separate group
	82nd (2000)	Proviso to Art. 335: qualifying marks or standards can be relaxed for SCs/STs in exams and promotions
Education	86th (2002)	Art. 21A: free and compulsory education from age 6 to 14 is a Fundamental Right. Art. 45: early childhood care up to age 6. Art. 51A(k): a new duty on parents and guardians to give their children education.
Tax	101st (2016)	Goods and Services Tax (GST)

• The 91st Amendment (2003) in detail:
• The split clause had let a breakaway group of one-third of a party's legislators escape disqualification. The government admitted that this allowed defection in bulk while banning defection by individuals, and that it made governments unstable. So it was deleted [6].
• Art. 75(1A): the Union Council of Ministers, including the PM, cannot be more than 15% of the Lok Sabha's total strength [7].

• Art. 164(1A): a state ministry, including the CM, cannot be more than 15% of the assembly's total strength. It must still have at least 12 ministers [7].

• Why consensus grew after 1984: coalition governments needed agreement across parties. A constitutional amendment needs a special majority: a majority of each House's total membership, plus two-thirds of the members present and voting. No single party could get that alone.

Prelims Hooks

• 15th Amendment (1963) → High Court judges' retirement age raised from 60 to 62.
• 54th Amendment (1986) → judges' salaries can now be revised by ordinary law.
• 104th Amendment (2019) → SC/ST seat reservation extended to 25 January 2030; Anglo-Indian nomination ended [2]. It was passed as the 126th Bill. Trap: an option saying "126th Amendment Act" is wrong.
• SC/ST seat extensions: 8th, 23rd, 45th, 62nd, 79th, 95th, 104th. That is seven extensions, all under Art. 334.
• Art. 74(1): advice made binding by the 42nd (1976); the President's power to return it once came from the 44th (1978).
• 91st (2003) → split exception deleted; ministry capped at 15%; at least 12 ministers in a state [6][7].
• 77th → Art. 16(4A) (promotions); 81st → Art. 16(4B) (carry-forward backlog); 82nd → proviso to Art. 335 (relaxed standards).
• 86th (2002) → Arts 21A, 45, 51A(k); 61st (1988) → voting age 18.
• 106th (2023) is the latest amendment Act. The 131st Bill (2026) on delimitation was defeated in the Lok Sabha on 17 April 2026 [5].
• Trap: the 1974–76 surge came under a 352-seat Congress majority. The 2001–03 surge came in a coalition era. Frequency does not depend on the size of the majority.

Mains Points

• Number vs content: about 106 amendments in 74 years does not mean the Constitution is unstable. Most are technical (salaries, retirement ages, ten-year extensions) or based on consensus (Tenth Schedule, local government, GST). Only the 1970–76 amendments struck at the core. This supports the idea of a "living document" (a constitution that can adapt) that is still neither too rigid nor too easy to change.
• Coalitions and consensus: the 2001–03 surge shows that the special majority in Art. 368 forces parties to agree. Even fragmented Parliaments passed reforms such as the 91st and 93rd Amendments.
• Routine extensions as a debate: repeating the Art. 334 extension every ten years (seven times so far) raises a question. Should SC/ST political reservation have a review mechanism instead of automatic renewal? Ending Anglo-Indian nomination in the 104th Amendment (2019) shows Parliament can also let a provision lapse.
• Amendments that fail: the defeat of the 131st Bill (2026) shows the special majority still blocks changes that lack wide agreement, especially on federal questions such as delimitation [5].