{"id":90321,"date":"2026-02-27T17:55:02","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T12:25:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=90321"},"modified":"2026-02-27T17:55:02","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T12:25:02","slug":"100th-constitutional-amendment-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/100th-constitutional-amendment-act\/","title":{"rendered":"100th Constitutional Amendment Act 2015, Background, Provisions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The 100th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2015 was passed to implement the <\/span><b>India-Bangladesh Land Boundary Agreement<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. This amendment allowed India to exchange certain territories with Bangladesh and to finally settle long-pending border disputes between the two countries.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>100th Constitutional Amendment Act Background and Need<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When India was partitioned in 1947, the boundary between India and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) was decided by the <\/span><b>Radcliffe Award<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. However, the boundary was not clearly drawn in some areas. As a result, a complex territorial arrangement developed along the border. Certain small pockets of Indian territory were located within Bangladesh, and similarly, some Bangladeshi territories were situated within India. These pockets were known as <\/span><b>enclaves<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Over time, three major problems existed:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">111 Indian enclaves were located inside Bangladesh.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">51 Bangladeshi enclaves were located inside India.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some areas were under<\/span><b> \u201cadverse possession\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, meaning one country controlled land that legally belonged to the other.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Around 6.1 km of the border was not clearly marked.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The people living in these enclaves suffered the most. They did not have proper citizenship documents, police protection, schools, hospitals or access to government schemes. It was difficult for either country to provide services because the land was surrounded by another country. Therefore, there was a strong humanitarian and administrative need to solve this issue permanently.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>India-Bangladesh Land Boundary Agreement, 1974<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To settle the issue, India and Bangladesh signed the Land Boundary Agreement on 16 May 1974. The agreement proposed:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Exchange of enclaves<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Settlement of areas under adverse possession<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Complete demarcation of the boundary<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, the agreement involved transfer of territory. In the Berubari case (1960), the Supreme Court had clearly stated that transfer of Indian territory requires a Constitutional Amendment under Article 368. Therefore, the 1974 agreement could not be implemented without amending the Constitution.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>2011 Protocol<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2011, both countries signed a Protocol to finalise the exact areas to be exchanged and to settle the remaining boundary disputes. The concerned states &#8211; <\/span><b>Assam, West Bengal, Meghalaya and Tripura<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> agreed to the settlement. This created the necessary political and legal consensus for bringing a constitutional amendment.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>100th Constitutional Amendment Act Provisions<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The provisions of the 100th Amendment are:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Gave constitutional approval to the 1974 Agreement and 2011 Protocol.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Transferred 111 Indian enclaves to Bangladesh.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Received 51 Bangladeshi enclaves from Bangladesh.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Settled areas under adverse possession.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Completed demarcation of the remaining 6.1 km border.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Amended the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/1st-schedule-of-indian-constitution\/\" target=\"_blank\"><b>First Schedule of Indian Constitution<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to change the territories of Assam, West Bengal, Meghalaya and Tripura.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Gave residents of enclaves the option to choose their <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/upsc-exam\/citizenship\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>citizenship<\/strong><\/a>.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Conclusion<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The 100th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2015 finally resolved a long-standing border problem that had existed since Partition. It improved the lives of thousands of people living in enclaves and strengthened friendly relations between India and Bangladesh. It also showed that any transfer of territory must follow proper constitutional procedure.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>100th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2015 enabled the India\u2013Bangladesh Land Boundary Agreement, exchanged enclaves, settled disputes, and amended state boundaries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":90347,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[786],"tags":[5777,5107,5108],"class_list":{"0":"post-90321","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-general-studies","8":"tag-100th-constitutional-amendment-act","9":"tag-indian-polity","10":"tag-indian-polity-notes","11":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90321","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=90321"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90324,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90321\/revisions\/90324"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}