When A Court Ruling Against A Sitting PM Changed India's Political History

NDTV

2 days ago

On a sweltering summer morning 50 years ago, anticipation gripped Courtroom No 24 of the Allahabad High Court. The stakes couldn't have been higher. At 10 am, Justice Jagmohan Lal Sinha delivered a landmark verdict that would alter the course of Indian politics.
On June 12, 1975, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's 1971 Lok Sabha election from Rae Bareli was declared void on grounds of electoral malpractice.
It was a political thunderclap. The ruling didn't only unseat a leader, it triggered a chain of events that led to the imposition of the Emergency, a 21-month period often described as the darkest chapter in India's democratic history.
The Unmaking Of A Mandate
Indira Gandhi's troubles began after the 1971 general elections. Riding high on her popularity after the Bangladesh war, she defeated socialist leader Raj Narain by over one lakh votes. But Narain wasn't done. He filed a petition in the Allahabad High Court, alleging that Gandhi used the government machinery for her campaign.
The court upheld only two charges: the illegal use of loudspeakers, stages, and security forces, arranged by officials on government duty, and the employment of Yashpal Kapur, her aide who hadn't officially resigned from government service before becoming her election agent.
Everything else, claims of distributing liquor and blankets, misusing the Air Force, and overspending, was dismissed for lack of evidence.
The two violations were enough.
Indira Gandhi was disqualified from holding elected office for six years. A serving Prime Minister was told: You cannot be a Member of Parliament.
The judgment stunned her party and followers. The opposition, meanwhile, smelled political change. Crowds gathered across cities. Protests erupted. The media covered every angle. All eyes turned to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court And The Midnight Decision
On June 24, the Supreme Court gave a partial stay, allowing Gandhi to remain Prime Minister but restricted her rights as an MP. She could attend Parliament, but not vote or receive a salary as a lawmaker.
Thirteen days later, on the night of June 25, Indira Gandhi invoked Article 352 of the Constitution. The Emergency was declared.
The country would not be the same for the next 21 months.
The Emergency Of 1975
The Emergency suspended fundamental rights. Political opponents were jailed. Newspapers and the Press were gagged. Student movements were crushed. The Constitution itself was amended to retroactively shield Indira Gandhi's election from judicial scrutiny through the 39th Constitutional Amendment.
The move was widely condemned, both domestically and internationally. Many saw it as an attempt by Gandhi to protect her political power at any cost.
Indira Gandhi Assassinated
India eventually voted her out in 1977, but the Janata Party government didn't last long. In 1980, the country reposed faith in Indira Gandhi again.
On October 31, 1984, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her own bodyguards at her Delhi residence. She was 66. The attack, a retaliation for Operation Blue Star, plunged India into an abyss. Thousands of Sikhs were killed in riots that followed.
Operation Blue Star, ordered by Indira Gandhi on June 1, 1984, was a military operation carried out by the Indian Army in June 1984 to remove Sikh militants who had taken refuge in the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar, Punjab.
A Grandson Faces A Familiar Fall
Nearly five decades later, the Gandhi name returned to the headlines for eerily similar reasons.
On March 23, 2023, Rahul Gandhi, her grandson and a sitting MP from Wayanad, was disqualified from Parliament. His offence: a criminal defamation case over a comment linking the "Modi" surname to corruption.
"Why do all thieves have Modi in their names?" he said at a 2019 rally.
The Lok Sabha Secretariat issued a notice: Rahul Gandhi stands disqualified as a Member of Parliament.
He, too, appealed. And like his grandmother, he received relief from the Supreme Court, which stayed the conviction and reinstated his parliamentary status in August 2023.