Nishita Kirty, GITAM School of Law, GITAM University
Abstract
India is the largest democracy in the world and has one of the finest written Constitutions as a guiding light to such democracy. While the Constitutional framers were making the Constitution they foresighted a lot of situations that may occur in our country and made provisions in the Constitution to deal with such situations. One of the best examples of this is the presence of Emergency provisions in our Constitution. Part XVIII of the Constitution provides provisions regarding Emergency at the time of war, external aggression or armed rebellion. The part discusses about three types of Emergencies that may occur in the country that is National Emergency, State Emergency and Financial Emergency. In the current time the world is going through a rough phase due to the outbreak of the COVID 19 Pandemic.
The Constitution which is way ahead of its time did not talk anything regarding a situation like this and it is well stated that the current scenario is an unprecedented one. This paper will
focus and discuss the following:
Could the situation like this was foreseeable while framing of the Indian Constitution?
Does the Pandemic bring a situation of National Emergency and the requirement Medical Emergency as a new type of Emergency?
Need of provisions in the Constitution regarding the Pandemic to guide us in future.
This paper looks into the role of the judiciary at the time of Emergency through case laws such as State of Uttar Pradesh v. Raj Narain, Indira Nehru Gandhi v. Shri Raj Narain & Anr, ADM Jabalpur v. Shivkant Shula, Minerva Mills v. Union of India, Kesavanada Bharati v. State of Kerela and many more and the suo moto actions taken by it during the Pandemic.
