January 09, 2008	Wednesday	Zilhaj 29, 1428

NEW DELHI, Jan 8: India remains a sovereign, secular, socialist democratic republic, the Supreme Court said on Tuesday after rejecting a petition to delete the word socialist from the constitution in view of the country’s free-market reforms initiated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

A Public Interest Litigation, filed by the Kolkata-based NGO Good Governance India Foundation, wished the word be struck off the constitution, saying that it was not a part of the original constitution that had been drafted by Dr B R Ambedkar.

The petition also sought to strike down the Representation of People Act, according to which political parties were forced to swear loyalty to socialism in order to be recognised.

The petition also claimed that the addition of the word socialism during then prime minister Indira Gandhi’s 1975-77 emergency rule was tantamount to re-writing the constitution.

Senior Advocate Fali S Nariman, who represented the petitioner, told the court: “It is contrary to the Constitution and to its democratic foundations that political parties be called upon to swear allegiance only to a particular mindset or ideology.”

“Introducing the word ‘socialist’ in the preamble breaches the basic structure and it is wholly inconsistent,” Mr Nariman argued. “The attempt to deliberately tunnel the collective view in one ideological direction is also a grave breach of the liberty provisions of the Constitution.”

Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, who headed the three-judge bench to hear the petition, observed: “Why do you take socialism in a narrow sense defined by communists? In broader sense, it means welfaremeasures for the citizens. It is a facet of democracy.”