Supreme Court of India Agrees to Hear Plea Seeking 1975 Emergency as Unconstitutional

A Bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Dinesh Maheshwari and Hrishikesh Roy on Monday agreed to examine the Constitutional validity of the 1975 national emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi under her power as the Prime Minister of India.

The Supreme Court of India after hearing Senior Advocate Harish Salve's argument remarked that the Court is empowered to examine the validity emergency. In this regard, a notice has been issued to the Central Government stating that the court will entertain the petition on the limited aspect of whether the validity of such proclamation can be probed by the Court after the passage of “such a long time.”

Senior Advocate Harish Salve while appearing from the petitioner side argued that “War crime issues are still heard. People are raising issues of holocaust now which pertain to the World War era. It (national emergency) was a fraud on the constitution. We must have this decided by this court. I feel very strongly about this. This is not a matter for political debate. Didn’t we see what happened to prisoners during emergency,”

The present petition is filed by Vera Sarin, seeking a declaration that the proclamation of 1975 emergency was unconstitutional. She had also prayed for damages to the tune of Rs 25 crores.