Constitutional Framework, Preamble & Salient Features

The Constitution of India, drafted by the Constituent Assembly under the chairmanship of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and adopted on November 26, 1949, is the world's longest written national constitution. It establishes a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic with a parliamentary system of governance and a federal structure possessing unitary bias. The Preamble serves as the philosophical guiding key, declaring justice, liberty, equality, and fraternity as foundational goals. While drawing institutional mechanisms from global models—such as parliamentary procedure from the United Kingdom and Fundamental Rights from the United States—the Supreme Court in the landmark Kesavananda Bharati verdict (1973) affirmed that the basic structure of the Constitution remains unalterable by parliament.