New Delhi: Thursday will mark the 40th anniversary of the imposition of Emergency in the country, a period which various scholars have variously referred to as 'dark days in Indian democracy' and 'dictatorship¿.

Former prime minister Indira Gandhi had imposed emergency in the country on June 25, 1975 after the Allahabad High Court and subsequently the Supreme Court found her election to the Lok Sabha 'null and void¿. Formally proclaimed by then-president Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, the decision to enforce the Emergency was taken without the approval of the then-union cabinet.