Courtroom No. 24: Justice, Power, And India’s Emergency

In the summer of 1975, all eyes were on one courtroom in Allahabad High Court— number 24, which has gone down in history as the judiciary's reckoning with political power. In the narrow corridors of the court, Justice Jagmohan Lal Sinha contemplated whether to annul then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s election to office.

At precisely 10 am on June 12, Justice Sinha declared: “This petition is allowed … the election of Smt. Indira Nehru Gandhi … is declared void … she stands disqualified for a period of six years.” For the first time in India, a Prime Minister had been unseated by judicial order.

Justice Sinha was ruling on a case filed by Raj Narain, a socialist activist who had faced off with Gandhi in the 1971 Rae Bareli and lost. The case alleged that Gandhi had indulged in electoral malpractice.

Just months before, in March 1975, Gandhi had faced cross-examination in court—another first for India. Lawyers for Indira had sought to shift proceedings to Delhi; Justice Sinha refused. As a nod to her position, he, instead, ordered for the witness chair to be placed on a raised platform. Gandhi’s cross-examination lasted hours.

Courtroom No. 24 was chosen for convenience—it was the farthest from the commotion caused by media and interested parties who wanted to watch the trial. On Narain’s side stood advocate Shanti Bhushan and RC Srivastava, and for Gandhi, S.C. Khare and P.N. Haksar. Witnesses included L.K. Advani, Karpoori Thakur, and N. De.

After closing oral arguments for court vacations on May 23, its reported that Justice Sinha wrote two alternate judgments.

When the verdict dropped, the court erupted. Indira’s counsel scribbled a handwritten stay application for appeal— there was no time to type it. Sinha granted twenty days. But, within three days, June 15, the Supreme Court issued a conditional stay, allowing Gandhi to continue as Prime Minister but barring her from parliamentary participation.

But that was just the beginning of a political maelstrom that India may never forget.

By June 25, President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, acting on Indira’s advice, invoked Article 352, declaring a national Emergency. The press was silenced, opposition leaders detained, and civil liberties suspended. Over 100,000 citizens—politicians, writers, activists—were detained without trial. Parliament pushed through the Thirty-ninth Amendment in August 1975, removing key offices (including the PM) from judicial review.

Justice Sinha passed away in 2008, but his verdict has yet to rest. The judge referred to it later as “like any other matter.” In 2021, Chief Justice N.V. Ramana praised it as “a judgment of great courage … which … resulted in the declaration of Emergency.”

In October 2024, Outlook looked back at the Emergency with the lens of the present, and asked: How different are the stories from those days of Emergency compared to the ones now?

Mukul Kesavan recalled the days of the Emergency and what it was like growing up during that time. Abhik Bhattacharya analysed whether Indian politics has come full circle since those dark days. Harsh Khare examined the lessons we could stand to learn from this chapter in our history.