As India celebrates its 77th Republic Day on Monday (January 26, 2026), its founding document — the Constitution — has seen 106 amendments. Indira Gandhi’s 16-year tenure as Prime Minister saw the highest number of changes (29), while Chandra Shekhar’s seven-month tenure saw the least (1). Under the current Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Indian Constitution has seen eight amendments, only one of which has been struck down by the Supreme Court.
During Mr. Modi’s 11-year tenure, Parliament passed five constitutional amendments in his first term (2014–2019) and three in his second term (2019–2024). The 99th Amendment – the Modi government’s first attempt to amend the Constitution – allowed for the creation of the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) to recruit, appoint and transfer judicial officers, including judges, thereby replacing the collegium. The Supreme Court immediately struck it down as “unconstitutional”.
The initial adjustments deal with judicial appointments, India’s foreign policy towards Bangladesh and Indian taxation overhaul. However, the remaining amendments changed India’s social structure amending laws for communities – Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST), Other Backward Classes (OBC), Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) and women.
Here’s a look at the changes enacted in Mr. Modi’s first term, their effects and criticisms:
NJAC Act (2014)
First proposed by the VP Singh government in 1990, the National Judicial Commission was proposed as a constitutional amendment but failed to pass the parliamentary hurdle then. In 2003, the Vajpayee government proposed a five-member panel comprising the Chief Justice of India, two judges of the Supreme Court, the Union Law Minister and an eminent citizen nominated by the President to decide on Supreme Court appointments and for the transfer and appointment of Supreme Court judges, the panel would also include the Chief Justice of the State High Court and the Chief Minister. However, this proposal died too soon.
In 2014, Parliament passed the 99th Constitutional Amendment along with the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act, 2014, paving the way for the creation of the NJAC instead of the Collegium system. This six-member commission, comprising the CJI, two senior judges of the Supreme Court, the Union Law Minister and two eminent citizens, was empowered to appoint the Supreme Court and various High Courts. Of the two nominated members, one had to belong to SC/ST/OBC/minority classes or be a woman. Both were to be nominated by a committee comprising the CJI, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition (Lok Sabha). Judges on the panel had veto power over any proposed appointment.
After the bills were passed, sixteen state legislatures ratified it and the president gave his assent to it on December 31, 2014. By April 2015, both bills had entered into force.
However, the Supreme Court struck down both laws as unconstitutional and upheld the Collegium system – a forum of the CJI and the four senior-most judges of the Supreme Court that recommends appointments to the higher judiciary and transfers of judges. Although not stated in the Constitution, this system has its legal basis in three judgments of the Supreme Court. In a 4-1 decision in which Justice J. Chelameswar was the lone dissenter, the Supreme Court observed that “the judiciary cannot risk being caught in the web of indebtedness to the government”.
“The primacy of the judiciary and the appointment of Supreme Court and Supreme Court judges and the transfer of Supreme Court judges is part of the basic structure of the Constitution,” former Supreme Court judge Abhay Oka told The Hind, adding, “You cannot introduce a system that provides that the Chief Justice of India will not have primacy, which was the reason why the NJAC was struck down.”
Mr. Oka said the Collegia system is justified by several judgments of the Supreme Court, adding, “There are several cases where the performance of the Collegia is not up to the desired level, but that does not make the system bad in itself. For recommendations to Supreme Court judges before it reaches the Supreme Court Collegium, it has the file of the Supreme Court Collegia, the report of the Chief Minister and the Governor in the review of the reporter. The Bureau (IB) which is fully controlled by the Centre”.
“Once the Supreme Court recommends it, the government can send it back for a fresh hearing after giving reasons. After reconsideration and resubmission (by the SC collegium), the government has no option but to sign the recommendation. But in the last 10-15 years, it has been seen that once the collegium recommends a name, the government lets it wait for nine months, sometimes up to one year,” Mr Oka said.
He argued that this delay discourages good candidates from accepting the post of judge, who, once accepted, must cease private practice. Admitting that the college has promoted several undeserving candidates, he affirmed that the main problem remains the delay on the part of the government and not the system itself.
“Before the introduction of the Collegium system, the Indira Gandhi government replaced three senior judges of the Supreme Court only because they were part of the majority in the Kesavananda Bharti judgment,” Mr. Oka noted, adding that in some cases the government was proactive. “When Justice BR Gavai was the Chief Justice, fourteen names were recommended and all were cleared by the government within three months. This has never happened before,” he said, pointing out the Centre’s selective approach.
However, there has been a visible thaw in recent months. Current CJI Surya Kant said the Supreme Court would consider a plea seeking to revive the NJAC. “Some bench may feel that the NJAC may need a review and will go to a bigger bench. Although I don’t know if that is a possibility, if that happens I will feel very bad,” Mr Oka said.
Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) with Bangladesh (2015)
Boundary problems between India and Bangladesh they were addressed by several treaties between the two nations, including the Nehru-Noon Agreement (1958), the Swaran Singh-Ahmed Sheikh Agreement (1959), and the Land Boundary Agreement (1974). However, under the 1974 agreement, three disputes remained – exchange of enclaves, settlement of 6.5 km of undefined land border and adverse land ownership. After eleven years of coordinated work by the Joint Boundary Working Group (JBWG), a protocol approving the joint boundary maps was signed in August 2011 and immediately ratified by the Bangladesh Parliament. After initiating a constitutional amendment in 2013, the Manmohan Singh government failed to pass it through Parliament.
On June 6, 2015, Mr. Modi signed a final agreement with his then Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina that ratified the 41-year-old enclave exchange agreement under the Land Boundary Agreement of 1974. This made 15,000 residents of 51 Bangladeshi enclaves inside West Bengal Indians, while residents of 111 Indian enclaves located deep inside Bangladesh became citizens of the neighboring country. Parliament passed the bill unanimously with bipartisan support and the support of the chief ministers of five states bordering Bangladesh – West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram.
Goods and Services Tax (GST) (2017)
The concept of a single goods and services tax (GST) structure was first proposed in 2002 by the Vajpayee government, but was only brought to fruition in 2017. Introduced in the Lok Sabha in 2014, the 101st Constitutional Amendment along with four laws — the Central GST Bill, 2017; Integrated GST Bill, 2017; GST (Compensation to States) Act, 2017; and the Union Territory GST Act, 2017 enabled a uniform indirect tax regime across India.
The GST Council, which comprises the Center and states, has recommended a four-tier tax structure – 5%, 12%, 18% and 28% for all goods except essential goods such as raw food, selected health products, educational services, petrol, diesel and alcohol. After the approval of this constitutional change by the parliament in 2016, it was first ratified by fifteen states. While President Pranab Mukherjee gave his assent to the bill on 8 September 2016 and the new regime came into force on 1 July 2017, the last state to ratify the bill was West Bengal on 8 August 2017.
Over the years, states have complained about less transfer of their shares by the Center and objected to the inclusion of several items in the taxed list. In 2022, the Supreme Court ruled that both the Center and the state have “equal, concurrent and unique powers” to enact Goods and Services Tax (GST) laws and are not bound by the recommendations of the GST Council. It also upheld the Gujarat High Court’s verdict that the Center cannot impose integrated GST on sea freight from Indian importers.
Subsequently, in September 2025, the Center simplified the GST structure to two tiers – 5% and 18%, while ultra luxury goods are subject to 40% tax and tobacco and related products continue to be in the 28% plus Cess category.
EWS Reservation (2019)
Three months before the Lok Sabha polls, on 9 January 2019, Parliament hastily passed the 103rd Constitutional Amendment, which gives a separate 10% reservation for the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) in education and employment. The existing reservation for SCs, STs, SEBCs and OBCs remained unchanged and the reservation became applicable to both central and state government jobs. States gained the power to decide on economic criteria for identifying beneficiaries. Opposition MPs sought to refer the bill to a select committee, questioning the timing of the bill. However, the law passed and immediately received the President’s assent within two days.
In November 2022, the Supreme Court upheld the law in a 3-2 majority decision, with the then CJI UU Lalit and Justice S. Ravindra Bhat in the minority. The court held that reservation is an “instrument of affirmative action by the State” and should include any “disadvantaged weaker section”. The majority held that it does not violate the basic structure of the constitution or the 50% cap on reservations.
Disagreeing with the majority view, Mr. PDT Achary, former Secretary General of the Lok Sabha, told The Hindu: “Reservation itself is a reasonable exception given to SCs, STs and OBCs because of what they have suffered for centuries or millennia – social degradation and disability. You cannot have equality because among unequals. It raises the question whether EWS reservation is necessary exclusively for 10% of people for EWS or not.” economically weaker sections among them”.
Even a dissenting opinion of the Supreme Court noted that the exclusion of SC/ST/OBC/SEBC communities from the EWS quota was a “mass injustice based on their past disabilities” and that it destroyed the Equality Code of the Constitution. Breaching the 50% cap with this quota would become a “gateway for further offenses and lead to fragmentation,” Justice Bhat noted.
The constitutional amendments passed in Prime Minister Modi’s second term are explored in the second part of this article. The 2018 NCBC amendment is also examined here along with the 2021 companion amendment.
