Consider the following statements: I. The 44 th Amendment to the Constitution of India introduced an Article placing the election of the Prime Minister beyond judicial review. II. The Supreme Court of India struck down the 99 th Amendment to the Constitution of India as being violative of the independence of judiciary. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

The correct answer is B. Only statement 2 is correct.

Statement 1 is wrong. The provision placing the election of the Prime Minister beyond judicial review was Article 329A, inserted by the 39th Amendment in 1975 during the Emergency, after the Allahabad High Court's verdict against Indira Gandhi. The Supreme Court struck it down in Indira Gandhi v. Raj Narain (1975) for violating the basic structure, and the 44th Amendment (1978) later removed the article. So the introducing amendment was the 39th, not the 44th.

Statement 2 is correct. The 99th Amendment (2014) created the National Judicial Appointments Commission and altered the collegium system. In Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association v. Union of India (2015), a five-judge bench struck it down by a 4:1 majority, holding that it compromised the independence of the judiciary and violated the basic structure. The collegium system was restored.

Core concept: Basic structure doctrine (Kesavananda Bharati, 1973) and judicial independence in appointments. This is central to Mains GS-2 questions on executive-judiciary relations.

Trap: Aspirants remember that the 44th Amendment 'removed' Emergency-era changes and wrongly assume it also introduced them. Keep amendment-year pairs clear.