India's Constitution Has Been Amended 106 Times Under Article 368, Which Asks for Two-Thirds of the Members Voting in Each House and, for Federal Changes, Half the State Legislatures

Parliament changes India’s Constitution under Article 368. A Bill must pass each House by a majority of that House’s total membership and by at least two-thirds of the members present and voting, and the President then gives assent. If the change touches the federal provisions listed in the article’s proviso, the legislatures of at least half the States must also ratify it first.

The Constitution came into force on 26 January 1950. In a radio address on 26 November 2023 the Prime Minister said that 106 amendments had been made since then, a count that includes the Constitution (106th Amendment) Act, 2023, which received the President’s assent on 28 September 2023. The latest Bill to reach a vote, the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026, got 298 votes in the Lok Sabha on 17 April 2026 against 230 and failed.

What Article 368 asks of Parliament

Clause (1) says Parliament may, in exercise of its “constituent power”, amend any provision by addition, variation or repeal. The Twenty-fourth Amendment added that clause with effect from 5 November 1971.

Clause (2) sets the procedure in three steps. A Bill can be introduced only in Parliament, in either House, so an amendment cannot begin in a state legislature or by executive order. Each House then votes on it separately, and the Bill must clear two tests at once: a majority of the House’s total membership, and a majority of not less than two-thirds of the members present and voting. Finally the President “shall give his assent”, wording in place since the 1971 change.

The vote of 17 April 2026 shows the second test at work. LiveLaw reports that 528 members voted, which put the two-thirds mark at 352, and the Bill received 298. The first test is measured against the full strength of the House, not against the number in the chamber that day.

Three routes, as Ambedkar described them in 1949

The Constituent Assembly settled the procedure on 17 September 1949, when it adopted draft Article 304 after a debate on how hard the Constitution should be to change. Some members wanted a bare majority to be enough for every article. Ambedkar, moving the article as chairman of the Drafting Committee, told the House that the draft sorted the Constitution into three groups. Parliament could amend the first by a bare majority, the second needed two-thirds, and the third needed two-thirds plus ratification by the States. He called a simple majority for everything “too extravagant and too tall an order”. The Assembly rejected the amendments that would have dropped the two-thirds rule and adopted the article.

The first group is not in Article 368 at all. It sits in other provisions that say a certain kind of law is not an amendment for the purposes of Article 368. Article 4(2) says so for laws that admit new states or reshape existing ones under Articles 2 and 3, and paragraph 7 of the Fifth Schedule and paragraph 21 of the Sixth Schedule say so for laws amending those schedules. Such a law passes like any other Bill, by a majority of the members present and voting under Article 100. The Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, which received assent on 1 March 2014 and formed Telangana from districts including Adilabad and Warangal, was a law of this kind. Article 3 adds a safeguard. If a Bill changes a state’s area, boundaries or name, the President must refer it to that state’s legislature for its views. Article 169 lets Parliament create or abolish a state’s Legislative Council by law, once that state’s Assembly passes a resolution by the same two-part majority that Article 368 uses.

The second group is everything in Article 368(2) outside the proviso, including the fundamental rights in Part III. The Bill needs the two majorities and the President’s assent, and nothing more.

The third group is the proviso. Ambedkar’s reason, given on 17 September 1949, was that the draft had given the Centre many powers while the federal structure “remains fundamentally unaltered”, and that the States should have a voice on the few articles that fix the balance. Today the proviso names Articles 54 and 55 (electing the President), 73 (the Union’s executive power), 162 (a state’s executive power), 241 (High Courts for Union territories) and 279A (the GST Council). It also covers the chapters on the Union judiciary and the High Courts, the chapter on legislative relations between the Centre and the States, the lists in the Seventh Schedule, the representation of States in Parliament, and Article 368 itself. The legislatures of at least half the States must pass resolutions approving the change before the Bill goes to the President.

Two Acts show it in use. Parliament passed the Goods and Services Tax amendment in August 2016, the GST Council says the required number of States ratified it, and the President gave assent on 8 September 2016. It became the 101st Amendment Act, and its provisions began taking effect in September 2016. The Supreme Court Observer reports that sixteen state assemblies ratified the 99th Amendment, which set up the National Judicial Appointments Commission.

Amendments that changed how the Constitution works

The First Amendment, in force from 18 June 1951, added Articles 31A and 31B and a Ninth Schedule with thirteen land reform laws, which shielded them from challenge for violating fundamental rights. The Supreme Court’s 2007 Coelho judgment describes its aim as securing the zamindari abolition laws. Territory has also been settled by amendment. With effect from 26 April 1975 the Thirty-sixth Amendment omitted Article 2A, which had made Sikkim an associate of the Union, and added Article 371F with special provisions for Sikkim as a state of the Union.

The Forty-second Amendment, in force in parts from 3 January 1977, put “socialist” and “secular” into the Preamble, replaced “unity of the Nation” with “unity and integrity of the Nation”, added Part IVA on fundamental duties, and added clauses (4) and (5) to Article 368. The Forty-fourth, in force from 20 June 1979, omitted Article 31 so that property stopped being a fundamental right, inserted Article 300A to say no person may be deprived of property save by authority of law, and replaced “internal disturbance” with “armed rebellion” as a ground for an Emergency under Article 352.

The Sixty-first Amendment, from 28 March 1989, lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. The Seventy-third and Seventy-fourth, from 24 April and 1 June 1993, added Parts IX and IXA on panchayats and municipalities, and Article 243D reserves not less than one-third of panchayat seats for women. The Eighty-fourth, from 21 February 2002, froze the allocation of Lok Sabha and assembly seats to the States on the 1971 census until the first census after 2026. The 103rd, in force from 14 January 2019, added clauses (6) to Articles 15 and 16 so the State can reserve up to ten per cent of seats for economically weaker sections.

Where the Supreme Court draws the line

Until 1967 the Court held that Parliament could amend anything. Its 2007 Coelho judgment records that Sankari Prasad upheld the First Amendment and Sajjan Singh upheld the Seventeenth in 1965, both reading Article 13, which voids laws that abridge fundamental rights, as not covering constitutional amendments. In Golaknath, decided on 27 February 1967 by eleven judges, the Court ruled six to five the other way: an amendment was “law” under Article 13, so Parliament could not abridge Part III. Parliament answered with the Twenty-fourth Amendment of 1971, which added Article 13(4) and the words “constituent power” to Article 368.

Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala was decided on 24 April 1973 by thirteen judges. Coelho describes the result as seven to six: Golaknath was overruled and the Twenty-fourth Amendment upheld, but Article 368 did not let Parliament alter the “basic structure or framework” of the Constitution. Justices Hegde and Mukherjea wrote that the power reaches every article, yet Parliament cannot “abrogate or emasculate” basic elements such as sovereignty, the democratic character of the polity, national unity and the essential features of individual freedoms. They called their list illustrative. The Court said later, in Minerva Mills, that the majority never fixed a named list of basic features. Coelho adds that the six judges who held the Twenty-ninth Amendment valid without condition did not subscribe to the doctrine, and Justice Y. V. Chandrachud’s concluding paragraphs found no inherent limit in the sense that the amending body lacked power to damage essential features.

Parliament’s reply in 1976 was clause (4), which barred any court from questioning an amendment “on any ground”, and clause (5), which declared that the amending power had “no limitation whatever”. On 31 July 1980, in Minerva Mills, the Court struck down both. Chief Justice Chandrachud, who had been in the Kesavananda minority, wrote for four judges and Justice Bhagwati concurred on clause (4). The opinion says “The power to destroy is not a power to amend.” Bhagwati added that an amendment passed by a simple majority would be no amendment at all, yet clause (4) would have made it unchallengeable.

The Coelho Bench of nine, on 11 January 2007, held that laws placed in the Ninth Schedule after 24 April 1973 can be tested against the basic structure. On 16 October 2015 a five-judge Bench struck down the 99th Amendment and the NJAC Act by four to one, and Justice Khehar’s opinion said Parliament could choose another appointment procedure that keeps the judiciary independent. On 7 November 2022 the Court upheld the 103rd Amendment by three to two, the majority being Justices Maheshwari, Trivedi and Pardiwala, with Justice Bhat dissenting for himself and Chief Justice Lalit.

The 106th Act and the vote of 17 April 2026

The 106th Amendment inserted Articles 330A, 332A and 334A and amended Article 239AA. It reserves, “as nearly as may be”, one-third of directly elected seats in the Lok Sabha, the state assemblies and the Delhi Assembly for women, including a one-third share inside the seats for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Article 334A says the reservation takes effect after a delimitation, the redrawing of constituency boundaries, that follows the first census taken after the Act’s commencement, and ends 15 years after commencement. It does not affect any House sitting at commencement until that House is dissolved. PRS says it was introduced on 19 September 2023. The Lok Sabha passed it by 454 votes to 2 and the Rajya Sabha passed it unanimously, according to the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs. PRS records that bills on the subject introduced in 1996, 1998 and 1999 lapsed, and that the 2008 Bill passed the Rajya Sabha and lapsed with the 15th Lok Sabha.

The Act left its start date to the Centre. LawBeat reports that a Law Ministry notification brought it into force on 16 April 2026.

The same day the Union Government introduced the 131st Amendment Bill, alongside a Delimitation Bill and a Union Territories Laws Bill. The Bill, as printed in the Gazette, would have raised the cap on Lok Sabha seats from 550 to 850, up to 815 for States and 35 for Union territories. It would have omitted the third provisos to Articles 82 and 170(3), which bar readjustment until figures of the first census after 2026 are published, and would have made women’s reservation take effect after a delimitation without waiting for that census. The Statement of Objects and Reasons says the 1971 freeze served an important purpose but that the population has shifted, and that waiting for the next census and delimitation would delay women’s participation. Opposition parties argued, LiveLaw reports, that an increase based on the 2011 census would reduce the share of southern and north-eastern States, and they questioned the haste while a census was under way.

The Bill received 298 votes to 230 with 528 members voting, short of 352. PRS lists it as negatived on 17 April 2026, and LiveLaw reports that the Government then withdrew the other two Bills. The Bill also amended Article 55, which is in the ratification proviso, so on the proviso’s wording it would have needed approval from half the state legislatures after Parliament.

PRS’s tracker, read on 14 October 2026, marks the 128th Bill, which became the 106th Act, as the latest amendment Bill to pass and lists the 130th Amendment Bill of 2025, on removing ministers upon detention, as in committee. The census now under way has a reference date of 1 March 2027, according to PRS.