647. The amendments brought about by Act 58 of 1974 and Act 40 of 1975 have an incisive impact on the cross-appeals but their edge was blunted by the Constitution (Thirty-ninth Amendment) Act which came into force on August 10, 1975. The 39th Amendment introduces two new articles in the Constitution : Articles 71 and 329-A; and it puts in the Ninth Schedule three Acts : (i) The Representation of the People Act. 43 of 1951; (ii) The Representation of the People (Amendment) Act. 58 of 1974; and (iii) The Election Laws (Amendment) Act, 40 of 1975. The new Article 71 which replaces its precursor empowers the Parliament to pass laws regulating the elections of the President and the Vice-President including the making of a provision for the decision of disputes relating to their election. Article 329-A has six clauses out of which the first three deal with the future election to the Parliament of persons holding the office of Prime Minister or Speaker at the time of the election or who are appointed to these offices after their election to the Parliament. These clauses aim at depriying the courts of their jurisdiction to try election petitions in which the election of the Prime Minister or the Speaker to the Parliament is challenged. Clause 4 frees the disputed election of the Prime Minister and the Speaker to the Parliament from the restraints of all election laws. It declares such election as valid notwithstanding any judgment and clause 5 ordains that any appeal or crossappeal pending before the Supreme Court shall be disposed of on the assumption that the judgment under appeal is void that the findings contained in the judgment never had any existence in the eye of law and that the election declared void by the judgment shall continue to be valid in all respects. Clause 6 provides that Article 329-A shall have precedence over the rest of the constitution. 648. At first blush what remains to be decided judicially in face of the 39th Amendment? As an exercises of Constiuent power the 39th Amendment must reign supreme. The political sovereign having reposed its trust in the legal sovereign, the doings of the Constiuent Assembly have an aura of sanctity that legal ingenuity may be powerless to penetrate. But that is an uninformed approach to a filed strewn with various shades of legal landmarks. 649. While repelling the challenge to the first Constitutional Amendment which was passed in June 1951, this Court held in Sri Sankari Prasad Singh Deo v. Union of India and State of Bihar (1952) 3 SCR 89 = (AIR 1951 SC 458) that the power of amendment conferred by Article 368 was not subject to any limitations express or implied, and that fundamental rights were within the sweep of the amending power. The Seventeenth Constitutional Amendment passed in June 1964 was similarly upheld by a majority decision of this Court in Sajjan Singh v. State of Rajasthan. (1965) 1 SCR 933=(AIR 1965 SC 845) which took the view that the fundamental rights were not intended by the framers of the Constitution to be finally and immutably settled when Constitution was passed. But the Seventeenth Amendment came to be challenged once again in I.C. Golak Nath v. State of Punjab. (1967) 2 SCR 762 = (AIR 1967 SC 1643). By a majority of 6:5 this Court held that the Seventeenth Amendment was ultra vires the Parliament's power to