Constitution Day – National Law Day

26^th November every year is celebrated as the Constitution Day or Samvidhan Diwas in India. It is also known as National Law Day.

A lot of people are not aware of the fact that the constitution of India was adopted by the constituent assembly on 26 November 1949. However, it came into effect on 26 January 1950, which is celebrated as Republic Day in India. The day was declared recently in the year 2015 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 11 October 2015 when he was laying the foundation stone for the statue of B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Statue of Equality’ in Mumbai. The same was later declared in a gazette notification by the Government of India in November.

Even before this, the day has already been celebrated as National Law Day, designated by the Supreme Court of India in the year 1979, to pay homage to 207 eminent members of the Constituent Assembly who have contributed their efforts and opinions during the framing of the Indian Constitution.

This day is celebrated in schools, colleges, and law offices with recitations of the Preamble and multiple fun games such as quizzes, essay competitions, debates, and many more.

Let us utilize this day to test our knowledge about the Constitution of India, and learn some unknown facts that very few people know.

• Originally, the Indian Constitution was written in two copies, one in Hindi and English each. All the members of the Constituent assembly who contributed to drafting the constitution signed both copies.

• Indian Constitution is the longest written constitution in the entire world. Currently, it constitutes of the following:

• 1 Preamble
• 22 Parts
• 448 Articles
• 12 Schedules
• 5 Appendices
• 115 Amendments
• Total 117,369 Words (English version)

• Both the copies of the Indian constitution were neither printed nor typed, rather it was handwritten completely.

• The person who wrote the final copy of the Indian Constitution by hand was Prem Bihari Narain Raizada. 

• This final copy of the Indian Constitution was decorated with beautiful images by artists of Shantiniketan.

• The first meeting of the Indian Constituent Assembly was held in December 1946 after which it took them exactly 2 years, 11 months, and 18 days to finalize the Indian Constitution through constant discussions and debates in the Assembly.

• Before legally enforcing the final draft as the constitution of India on 26^th January 1950, as many as 2000 amendments were made through thorough debates and discussions via various assembly sessions. After it was enforced in 1950, it has been amended 104 times as of January 2020.

• The Indian Constitution is also referred to as ‘a bag of borrowings’ due to the fact that a lot of the provisions in our constitution were copied from constitutions of other countries when it was being written. Our Constituion has parts which were borrowed from:

• The British Constitution
• The French Constitution
• The Constitution of the USSR
• The Constitution of Japan
• The Constitution of Germany
• The US Constitution
• The Constitution of Ireland
• The Constitution of Canada
• The Constitution of Australia

How many of these did you know?

To enforce the rules or the law which is set by the constitution, the judiciary works as per its powers which are also mentioned in the constitution. The constitution of India empowers the Judiciary to act as the Guardian of Law, however, this does not give any special powers to the courts. The courts can only act as per the laws set by the constitution for its working, and not independently.

The law of India and the Indian Constitution go hand in hand to keep each other in check and make sure that justice and harmony prevail in the country.