{"id":58729,"date":"2025-02-24T18:09:16","date_gmt":"2025-02-24T12:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=58729"},"modified":"2026-02-25T10:38:04","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T05:08:04","slug":"7th-constitutional-amendment-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/7th-constitutional-amendment-act\/","title":{"rendered":"7th Constitutional Amendment Act, Importance, Key Details"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The 7th Constitutional Amendment Act was introduced to re-organise the states systematically, replacing the earlier boundaries. It allowed the appointment of a single governor for two or more states addressing terms of service for the positions. Most importantly, it implemented the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, which redrew state boundaries largely on linguistic lines. This led to the creation of 14 states and 6 union territories. Special provisions were also introduced for Andhra Pradesh and Punjab, reflecting political and linguistic demands of the time. While the reorganisation aimed to ease administrative challenges and respect regional identities, it also sparked public unrest and inter-regional tensions, eventually requiring further amendments and adjustments in later years.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>State Reorganisation Act, 1956<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/upsc-exam\/state-reorganisation-act-1956\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>States Reorganisation Act<\/strong><\/a>, 1956 was a major legislative step by the Indian Parliament that re-define the boundaries of India\u2019s states primarily on linguistic lines. It resulted in the creation of 14 states and 6 union territories (not 5, as originally stated). This reorganisation replaced the older system of Part A, B, C, and D states with a two-tier classification:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">States, and Union Territories. The Act also abolished the post of Rajpramukh, which had been used to administer certain princely states post-independence.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Maharashtra-Gujarat Division<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The reorganisation sparked significant unrest, especially in Bombay State, where Marathi-speaking and Gujarati-speaking populations demanded separate states. Protests by Marathi-speaking people turned violent, with nearly 80 people killed in police firing during the agitation. This eventually led to the bifurcation of Bombay State into Maharashtra and Gujarat in May 1960.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bombay (now Mumbai) became the capital of Maharashtra.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ahmedabad was declared the first capital of Gujarat (later replaced by Gandhinagar).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><b>Impact on the Constitution<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As a result of the States Reorganisation Act:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Fourth Schedule of the Constitution was revised to reflect new allocations of seats in the <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/rajya-sabha\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Rajya Sabha<\/strong><\/a> (Council of States).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The constitutional classification of states and territories was simplified, making governance more uniform across the country.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Article 153<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Article 153 of the Indian Constitution states that \u201cThere shall be a Governor for each State.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, the 7th Constitutional Amendment Act 1956 clarified that one person can be appointed as the Governor of two or more states simultaneously.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Before the amendment, the phrase \u201ca Governor for each State\u201d created a technical issue, it implied that each state must have a separate governor. This became impractical in cases where:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Smaller states shared similar administrative issues<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Coordination was needed across neighboring regions<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Appointing separate governors wasn\u2019t efficient<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To fix this, the amendment inserted a clarification in Article 153 that allows the President to appoint the same individual as Governor for two or more states, if needed.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Article 171<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Originally, the maximum strength of a State\u2019s Legislative Council (Vidhan Parishad) was set at 25% of the total strength of the State\u2019s Legislative Assembly (Vidhan Sabha). This ratio was optimum for larger states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where the Assembly itself is large. But for smaller states, this idea led to a very small council, sometimes too small to function effectively.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To address this issue, the rule was amended to raise the maximum limit to one-third (33%) of the Legislative Assembly\u2019s strength. This ensures that even smaller states can have a functionally viable Legislative Council.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Also Check: <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/upsc-exam\/103rd-constitutional-amendment-act\/\" target=\"_blank\">103rd Constitutional Amendment Act<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><b>Article 258A<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Article 258A was added to the Constitution of India through the 7th Amendment Act (1956). It gives state governments the power to entrust their functions to the Central Government or its officers but only with the consent of the Centre.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A state governor, acting on behalf of the state government, can assign certain state-level responsibilities to the Union Government or to its agencies. Consent from the Central Government is mandatory. This is not applied in the case of Union Territory, just for States.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>7th Constitutional Amendment Act reorganized Indian states on linguistic lines, created 14 states &#038; 6 UTs, and clarified key constitutional provisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":58551,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[786],"tags":[2090],"class_list":{"0":"post-58729","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-general-studies","8":"tag-7th-constitutional-amendment-act","9":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58729"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89773,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58729\/revisions\/89773"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}