Report No. 46
4. Twenty-fourth Amendment clarificatory in nature.-
In order to avoid confusion, it is necessary to state clearly that the Twenty-fourth Amendment does not purport to confer on Parliament any additional power not possessed by it earlier, but it merely clarifies what, in the opinion of Parliament, has always been the true position about the scope and effect of the provisions of Article 368. It is true that, in order to clarify the said position, Parliament has, as a matter of abundant caution, made some suitable amendments in Article 13 and Article 368, but the result of the said amendments is to declare that Article 368 meant what it was interpreted to mean by the unanimous Court in Shankari Prasad Singh Deo's case1 as well as by the majority of the Judges constituting the Bench in Sajjan Singh's case.2 In other words, the Twenty-fourth Amendment Act says that the law in regard to the power of Parliament to amend the Constitution, which was laid down authoritatively by the Supreme Court and accepted as correct between the 5th October, 1951 and 27th February, 1967, is the correct law.
1. Shankari Prasad Singh Deo v. Union of India, AIR 1951 SC 418.
2. Sajjan Singh v. State of Rajasthan, AIR 1965 SC 845.
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