The Janata government, the Shah Commission and the 1980 election

Detail

1. Setting the scene: the Janata comes to power (March 1977)

• The Janata Party (a party formed in 1977 by merging several non-Congress parties) won the March 1977 Lok Sabha election. It took power with Morarji Desai as Prime Minister.
• Its main promise was to undo the Emergency. That meant two things:
• finding out what had gone wrong (the Shah Commission);
• changing the laws and the Constitution so that it could not happen again (MISA repeal, 43rd and 44th Amendments).

2. The Shah Commission of Inquiry (1977-78)

• Shah Commission: a body set up in May 1977 to find out what wrongs (excesses) were done during the Emergency.
• Head: Justice J.C. Shah, a retired Chief Justice of India.
• Legal basis: the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1952. Under this Act, the government can appoint a commission to look into any definite matter of public importance. Its findings are advisory. They are not a court verdict, and no one can be punished on the report alone.

• Period covered: 25 June 1975 to 21 March 1977, the whole span of the Emergency [6].

• What it examined:

• arrests (preventive detention, which means jailing people without trial to stop what they might do);
• press censorship (news had to be cleared by government officials before it could be printed);
• demolitions of slums and houses, for example in Delhi;

• forced sterilisations under the family-planning drive.

• Output: three reports, released in 1978. (Some accounts date the last report to 1979 [6].)

• Key finding: the police and administration had become vulnerable to political pressure.
• Officials obeyed orders that broke rules and laws.
• Many acted on oral orders from people who held no official post.

• This meant the civil service was no longer neutral.

• Indira Gandhi declined to give evidence. She appeared before the Commission but refused to testify, calling the inquiry politically motivated.

• Afterlife of the report: copies later became scarce. In 2010, former MP Era Sezhiyan republished it as Shah Commission Report: Lost and Regained.

3. Undoing the Emergency: the legal measures

(a) MISA repealed (1978)

• MISA (Maintenance of Internal Security Act, 1971) was a preventive-detention law. It was the main tool used to jail opposition leaders during the Emergency.
• The Janata government repealed MISA in 1978.

(b) 43rd Amendment Act, 1977: courts get their powers back

• The 42nd Amendment (1976) had cut the powers of the courts. The 43rd Amendment reversed much of this.
• It removed Arts. 32A and 226A. These had stopped courts from examining the validity of state laws in Art. 32 cases, and had limited what High Courts could do under Art. 226.
• It removed Arts. 131A, 144A and 228A, which had placed limits on how the Supreme Court and High Courts could decide constitutional cases.

• It removed Art. 31D, which had allowed laws against "anti-national activities".

• Result: the Supreme Court and High Courts regained their full power of judicial review (the power of courts to strike down laws and orders that break the Constitution).

(c) 44th Amendment Act, 1978: making another Emergency harder

Issue	Before (1950 text / 42nd Amendment, 1976)	After 44th Amendment (1978)
Ground for national emergency (Art. 352)	War, external aggression or "internal disturbance"	War, external aggression or "armed rebellion" [2]
Who advises the President	Prime Minister's advice was enough	The Union Cabinet's decision must be communicated to the President in writing (Art. 352(3)) [2]
Parliament's approval	Within 2 months, by simple majority	Within 1 month, by both Houses, by a special majority [2]
Fundamental rights during emergency	Any right could be suspended	Arts. 20 and 21 (protection in criminal cases; right to life and personal liberty) can never be suspended (Art. 359)
Term of Lok Sabha and state assemblies	6 years (set by the 42nd Amendment)	5 years restored (Arts. 83 and 172)
Right to property	Fundamental right (Arts. 19(1)(f), 31)	Art. 31 deleted from Part III. Now a legal (constitutional) right under Art. 300A in Part XII: no one can lose property "save by authority of law" [3][4]

• Art. 300A (the right to property as an ordinary constitutional right) says no person can be deprived of property except under a law. Unlike the old Art. 31, it does not mention compensation [3][4].
• Special majority (here): two-thirds of the members present and voting, and a majority of the total membership of each House [2].

(d) How a national emergency now works (Art. 352, after 1978)

1. Cabinet decides. The Union Cabinet (the PM and Cabinet ministers) decides there is war, external aggression or armed rebellion. It sends that decision to the President in writing [2].
2. President proclaims. The President issues the Proclamation. It can be issued even before the actual danger arrives, if the danger is imminent.
3. Parliament approves within 1 month. Both Houses must approve it by special majority. If they do not, the Proclamation lapses [2].
4. It lasts 6 months at a time. It must be renewed by fresh special-majority resolutions every 6 months [2].
5. Lok Sabha can end it. - If the Lok Sabha passes a resolution disapproving the emergency by simple majority, the President must revoke it (Art. 352(7)) [2]. - If one-tenth of Lok Sabha members give written notice, a special sitting must be held within 14 days to consider such a resolution (Art. 352(8)) [2].

(e) Other bodies set up

• National Police Commission (1977): set up to suggest police reforms. It answered the Shah Commission's finding that the police had become a political tool.
• Mandal Commission: the Second Backward Classes Commission, appointed under Art. 340 (the President can appoint a commission to study backward classes). It was set up by the Janata government in 1979 under B.P. Mandal. Its report (1980) was implemented only in 1990.

4. Why the Janata failed

• No direction, leadership or common programme. The party was a merger of groups that had little in common except opposition to Indira Gandhi. Its policies were no fundamental change from the Congress's.
• Rivalry at the top. Three leaders kept competing for power:
• Morarji Desai, the Prime Minister;
• Charan Singh, a peasant leader from the Lok Dal with a base among farmers in western Uttar Pradesh;

• Jagjivan Ram, a senior Dalit leader who left the Congress in 1977 and formed the Congress for Democracy.

• Dual membership controversy (1979): a dispute over whether former Jana Sangh members in the Janata Party could also stay members of the RSS.

• Socialist leaders said they could not belong to both.
• Former Jana Sangh members refused to give up their RSS links.

• The quarrel helped split the party.

• Indira Gandhi's comeback (beyond NCERT):

• October 1977: she was arrested, then quickly released. Many saw the arrest as revenge, and it won her public sympathy.
• 1978: the Congress split again, and her faction became the Congress (I).
• November 1978: she won the Chikmagalur (Karnataka) Lok Sabha by-election and returned to Parliament.

5. The fall: Desai to Charan Singh (1979)

• Desai government falls (July 1979):
• defections and the split left Desai without a majority;

• he resigned in under 28 months.

• Charan Singh government (July 1979):

• He became PM on a promise of outside support from the Congress [5].
• The Congress reportedly expected him to drop the Emergency cases against Sanjay Gandhi. He refused [5].
• The Congress withdrew its support, so he resigned (August 1979) [5]. He stayed on as caretaker PM until January 1980 [5]. In all, his government lasted about four months.

• He never faced the Lok Sabha. He is the only PM who never once faced Parliament as Prime Minister.

• Lok Sabha dissolved. A mid-term poll (an election held before the House's full five-year term ends) followed.

6. The January 1980 general election

• Result: the Congress (I) under Indira Gandhi won 353 seats out of 542. This nearly repeated its 1971 landslide.
• The Janata was comprehensively defeated, especially in north India, which it had swept in 1977.
• Lesson: voters severely punish governments that look unstable and quarrelsome. The 1977 vote was against the Emergency. The 1980 vote was against Janata disorder. It was not a vote of approval for the Emergency.
• Why the poll was needed:
• the Janata coalition broke apart;
• no stable majority could be formed in the Lok Sabha;
• Charan Singh's minority government lost Congress support.

Prelims Hooks

• Shah Commission: May 1977, Justice J.C. Shah (retired CJI), under the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1952. Three reports in 1978. Covered 25 June 1975 to 21 March 1977.
• Trap: Shah Commission findings are not binding. A commission under the 1952 Act only recommends.
• 44th Amendment (1978): replaced "internal disturbance" with "armed rebellion" in Art. 352. It also made a written Union Cabinet decision mandatory (Art. 352(3)).
• Arts. 20 and 21 can never be suspended during an emergency, even under Art. 359. The 44th Amendment brought this in, not the 42nd.
• Right to property: Art. 31 was deleted by the 44th Amendment, and the right moved to Art. 300A (Part XII). It is a constitutional right, not a fundamental right.
• 43rd Amendment (1977) restored the courts' jurisdiction (removed Arts. 32A, 226A and others). The 44th fixed the emergency provisions. Don't swap them.
• Mandal Commission was set up by the Janata government (1979) under Art. 340.
• Charan Singh is the only PM who never faced the Lok Sabha (July 1979 to January 1980).
• 1980 election: Congress (I) won 353 seats. It was a mid-term poll.
• Dual membership controversy: former Jana Sangh members of the Janata who were also in the RSS (1979).

Mains Points

• Institutional safeguards vs. political will (GS-II): the 44th Amendment raised legal barriers to an emergency, such as written Cabinet advice, a special majority, a 1-month approval window and protection for Arts. 20-21. But the Shah Commission showed that excesses came from a politicised police and bureaucracy. That needs police reform (National Police Commission 1977; later Prakash Singh, 2006), not just constitutional text.
• Accountability gap: commissions under the 1952 Act only recommend. Few Emergency excesses ended in prosecution, and the Shah report itself became scarce. This weakens the deterrent against the abuse of power.
• Coalitions without a common programme (GS-I): the Janata failed because of rival leaders, the dual-membership dispute and the lack of a shared programme. Later coalitions tried to avoid this with a Common Minimum Programme.
• Voters as the final check: in 1977 voters rejected authoritarian rule, and in 1980 they punished instability. Indian democracy corrected itself through the ballot box both times.