The Supreme Court on Friday said that it will hear in April 2024, the BJP leader Subramanian Sway’s plea for the deletion of description of India as a ‘secular’ and ‘socialist’ republic from the preamble of the Constitution.

A bench comprising Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta posted the matter for hearing on April 29, 2024.

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Seeking the deletion of the words ‘secular’ and ‘socialist’ from the preamble of the Constitution, Swamy in his public interest plea that was filed in year 2020, has said that these two words were incorporated in the preamble of the Constitution by 42 amendment of the constitution in 1976 during national emergency (1975-1977) and violated the basic structure doctrine by a 13-judge bench in 1973 in the Kesavananda Bharati case by which the Parliament was barred from amending the Constitution that tinkered with its basic structure.

Swamy has stated that the insertion of words ‘secular’ and ‘socialist’ in the preamble was beyond the amending power of the Parliament under Article 368 of the Constitution. He claims that the architect of the Constitution Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar had rejected the incorporation of these words as the Constitution cannot thrust upon the citizens certain political ideologies by taking away their right to choose.

Swamy has contended that these two words were thrust on the citizens even though the framers of the Constitution had never intended to introduce socialist and secular nature of the Indian Republic in the Constitution.

Opposing Swamy’s plea, Member of Rajya Sabha and the Communist Party of India (CPI) leader Binoy Viswam in his impleadment application has told the top court that both ‘secularism and socialism’ are inherent to the basic features of the Constitution.

The communist leader Binoy Viswam has said the real purpose behind Swamy’s PIL is to allow political parties to seek votes in the name of religion.

Stating that Swamy’s petition is an absolute abuse of the process of law and is devoid of merit, the CPI leader has said that it deserves to be dismissed with exemplary costs as it seeks to challenge the 42nd Amendment to the Constitution.

The application by the CPI leader says, “The 42nd amendment is challenged by the petitioner as an eyewash to succeed in striking down sub-section 5 of section 29(A) of the Representation of People’s Act, 1951” – providing for the Registration with the Election Commission of associations and bodies as political parties the application had stated.

Section 29A of the Registration of People Act, 1951, mandates that the political parties seeking registration with Election Commission will abide by the constitution and its principle of “secularism, socialism and democracy”.

Initially in 2020, three people – Balram Singh, Karunesh Kumar Shukla and Praevesh Kumar had approached the top court seeking deletion of ‘secularism and socialism’ from the preamble.