The Constitution of India came into force on 26th January, 1950. At the time of its adoption, the Constitution contained 395 Articles and 8 Schedules and was about 145,000 words long, making it the longest national Constitution to ever be adopted. Every Article in the Constitution was debated by the members of the Constituent Assembly, who sat for 11 sessions and 167 days to frame the Constitution, over a period of 2 years and 11 months.

This section contains every Article in the amended Constitution of India (as of 2020), with its corresponding Article in the Draft Constitution of India, 1948. Each Article also contains a summary of the debates on that Article in the Constituent Assembly. The Articles are grouped into 22 different parts, which reflects how they are organized in the text of the Constitution of India, 1950

The Schedules to the Constitution, which are now 12 in number, elaborate on government policy or rules in relation to specific Articles of the Constitution. Each Schedule in this section is tagged with the corresponding Article(s) for ease of understanding.

• May 31, 2018 Articles of Indian constitution in Hindi language pdf is available here. Before Reading or downloading the articles of the Indian Constitution you should read all the parts of the Indian Constitution. Read: GK 22 Parts of The Constitution of India – List PDF NOTE: Article 370 is no longer remains valid from 6th August 2019.
• Here is the list of 80 most important articles of the Indian Constitution:. 1:- Name and territory of the Union. 3:- Formation of new states and alteration of areas.

Jun 09, 2020 Very few of us are aware that at the time the Indian Constitution was commenced, there were 395 articles. These articles were divided into 22 parts and 8 schedules. Indian Constitution is already the longest Constitution in the world. It has now grown to 448 articles in 25 parts, 12 schedules with 5 appendices, and 102 amendments.

To read the text of the Constitution in other languages, click here.

The necessity to define religion in India was first expressed by Dr B.R Ambedkar.

When a certain matter involving personal law and its relationship with religion was initiated as a point of discussion in the Constituent Assembly.

According to Ambedkar, the religious notions in India are extremely expansive as a result of which they cover each and every aspect of an individual’s life – from birth to death.

Article 26 of the Indian Constitution states that every individual enjoys the Freedom required to manage any religious affairs, depending on public order, health and morality. It further goes on to state that every religious body or any section of that, shall have complete freedom to exercise the right:

• Of establishing and maintaining any institutions made for religious and charitable purposes
• Of managing their own affairs when it comes to matters of religion
• Of owning and acquiring both the movable and immovable property
• Of the administration of such property in accordance with the law

Being a secular country, every citizen in India is given the right to choose which religion s/he wants to be associated with. Since there are so many religions that are practised in the country, the constitution guarantees the individuals to follow one of their choices.

Constitutional Republic

In the year 1950, when the Constitution of India was first implemented, it did not include the term ‘secularism’. It was only through the 42nd Amendment that the word ‘secularism’ received a place in the Preamble (the first page of the constitution) and it came into effect on 3 January 1977.

India then came to be labelled as a “Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic” in the Preamble of the Constitution.

Freedom of conscience is an indication of a democratic country. Here the freedom of conscience is exercised by allowing the people of diverse faith to have similar rights and responsibilities without the existence of any kind of discrimination against each other.

The need for more provisions

Article 15 and 16 of the Indian Constitution already provided the principle of equal rights and freedom to the people of all religions in India without any discrimination. Additional to that the Constituent Assembly felt the need to incorporate two more provisions to protect and secure the religious rights of its citizens in the forms of Articles 25 and 26.

Whilst Article 25 states that every individual in the country has the Freedom of conscience, as well as free, practise, profess and propagate their respective religion, Article 26 states that it is the right of every religious denomination to freely establish and maintain institutions for both religious and charitable purposes.

• The article includes the denomination of any religion, irrespective of it being a majority or a minority religion.
• Instead of dealing with the rights of individuals, in particular, this article deals with the rights of religious denominations.
• As listed in article 25(2) (b), the State has no right to interfere in the matters regarding the religion of denominations.
• But, subject to the grounds provided, the State has the right to interfere in the secular activities of the religious denominations as well as their organisations.

In order to be recognised as a religious denomination, a religion must have:

• A faith that is common to all the members of that body or religion
• All the members of that body should belong to a common organisation
• That organisation of the religion must have a distinctive name.

How is it different?

The principle difference between the two articles is that while Article 25 of the Indian Constitution refers to a person, Article 26 talks about every religious faction.

The term ‘every’ which is incorporated in the article accomplishes the identical purpose as the terms ‘all’ and ‘equally’ do in Article 25. Article 26 takes an institutional approach to religion. It grants recognition to a legally well-defined entity of any and every religion whilst investing the constitutional claim to religious freedom with it.

Had it been only a mere intention of the individual, then the article 19 (1) (c) of the constitution, which guarantees every individual the right to form unions or associations or for that matter of fact cooperative societies, would have rightly served the purpose.

Hence Article 26 is important as it provides corporate Freedom of the religion.

Clause 1 of Article 26

The first clause of Article 26 of the Indian Constitution states that a religious denomination has absolute rights to manage its own affairs when it comes to matters of religions. The management of religious matters is not confined to only the matters of doctrines or beliefs, but also extends to the acts involving the pursuance of religion, hence guaranteeing rituals, observances, ceremonies and modes of worship which are considered a very important part of every religion.

No Of Articles In Indian Constitution 2021

This means that if the beliefs of any religious faction of the Hindus advocate that the ‘prasad’ or the food that is offered to the idol has to happen in between particular hours of the day, the ceremonies to be performed in a particular way at a particular period of time of the year, then all of these would be considered as parts of a religion. Also, the fact that the conduction of such activities involves spending of money, employment of people as priests or servants, as well as the use of commodities, should be regarded as ‘matters of religion’, as stated under Article 26 (b).

Stated under Article 26 (b), a religious denomination or a religious institution has the right to complete autonomy as to deciding what rites and ceremonies should be conducted as part of a religion and there is no outside authority who has the right to interfere in decisions regarding such matters.

Clauses C and D of the article

Both the clauses, C and D of Article 26 of the Indian Constitution guarantee that any religious sect is entitled to acquire as well as own property along with administering the property in accordance with the law.

The right to administer a property by a religious group has been placed on a different cornerstone than from the right to manage its own affairs in case of matters of religion.

The latter is known to be a Fundamental Right; hence even if it is subjected to public order, morality or health; no legislature can take it away. But the former can be regulated by the legislative laws. So we can say that clause (b) of Article 26 will not apply if it is only the administration of properties belonging to a religious institution of denomination and not a ‘matter of religion’.

Under clauses (c) and (d) of the above-stated article, no rights or responsibilities are created for the religious denomination which it hitherto didn’t have. The clauses only protect and safeguard the rights which these denominations possess alongside guaranteeing its continuance to them.

It should be noted that Article 26 (c) of the Indian Constitution does not interfere with the State’s right to acquire the property. Even though the religious denominations can acquire, own and administer properties in accordance with the law, the State still owns full right to acquire the property from these denominations. And once their property is acquired by the State, the religious denominations will no longer be entitled to acquire or administer those property(s).

Indian Constitution: Parts, Schedules And Articles At A Glance

Anannya is a recent graduate in Journalism from Delhi University. She is a writer by heart and by passion and someday looks forward to taking it up as an occupation as well. She believes in gaining as much knowledge as one can and wants to help in imparting that knowledge through her writing.