The Crucial Role Of Amending A Federal Constitution

Gaurav Mittal, Assistant Professor (Senior Scale), School of Law, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun

ABSTRACT

The Word ‘Constitution’ is Commonly used at least in two senses in any ordinary discussion of political affairs. Firstly in broader sense it is used to describe the whole system of the government of a country, the collection of rules which establish and regulate or govern the system. These rules are partly legal in the sense that courts of law will recognize and apply them, and partly non- legal or extra-legal taking the form of usages, understanding, customs or conventions which courts do not recognize as law but which are not less effective in regulating the govt. than the rules of law strictly so called. Secondly in narrower sense, it is used to describe not the whole collection of rules, legal and non-legal but rather a selection of them which has usually been embodied in one document. The selection is almost invariably a selection of legal rules only. The constitution, then for most of the countries in the world, is a selection of the legal rules which govern the government of that country and which have been embodied in a document

The moment the idea of constitution is conceived at that very moment the idea of its amendment has acquired the sanctity of its own. The amendment of the constitution is as important as the constitution itself. Right from the beginning even from the days of formation of the constitution there have been hot debate upon the extent of the power to be provided for the amendment and the procedure which is to be followed for amendment. Some scholars treat constitution as a sacrosanct document having sanctity of its own while others are of the view that there is no logic in forcing and compelling the present generation to follow and be governed by the logic and the reason of the past generation. So the scholars of the former categories subscribe to the view that the power of the amending the constitution should be very limited while the scholars of the later categories are of the view that the power of the amendment

must be of plenary nature.