Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala is a landmark judgment in the Indian Constitutional Law history. A 13-judge Bench was set up by the Supreme Court, the biggest so far, and the case was heard over 68 working days. The Ayodhya case hearing was wound up in 40 days. It is still the longest hearing held in the Supreme Court.
Kesavananda Bharati judgement, is a landmark decision of the Honourable Supreme Court of India that contour the basic structure doctrine of the Indian Constitution. It was decided on 24th April, 1973. Full name of the case is Kesavananda Bharati Sripadagalvaru & Ors. v. State of Kerala & Anr. The decision given by the bench in Kesavananda Bharati’s case was very distinctive and thoughtful. The judgment was of 700 pages that include a solution for both the parliament’s right to amend laws and the citizen’s right to protect their fundamental rights. A bench of 13 judges was set up to decide and to deliver the definitive judgement.
JUDGES INVOLVED
Chief Justice S M Sikri
J. M. Shelat
K.S. Hegde
A.N. Grover
B. Jaganmohan Reddy
D.G. Palekar
H R Khanna
A.K. Mukherjee
Y.V. Chandrachud.
A.N. Ray,
K.K. Mathew
M.H. Beg
S.N. Dwivedi
ISSUES INVOLVED
Whether Constitutional amendment as per Article 368 applicable to Fundamental Rights or not?
Whether 24th amendment act 1971 is valid?
Whether section-2(a), 2(b) and 3 of 25th amendment are valid?
Whether 29th amendment act 1971 is valid?
FACT OF THE CASE
Kesavananda Bharati’s case involved six writ petitions by a number of petitioners who represented their propertied class, propertied land opposed to land ceiling laws, sugar companies in Maharashtra, coal mining companies, and former princes seeking to preserve their earlier privileges. The writ petitions questioned whether there were limitations on the power of parliament to amend the Constitution, particularly the Fundamental Rights, as decided in the case of Golaknath. Kesavananad Bharti , the head of Hindu matt challenged Kerala Government under state land reform act to impose the restrictions. Swami filled his petition under article 26, concerning the right to manage religiously owned property without the government interference. This particular case mainly talks about article 368 if the Indian constitution which is on the amending power of the parliaments but this article fails to define as to what extent the parliament is authorized to amend the constitution and and at what rate parliament can amend the constitution. The Kesavananda Bharati case was the pinnacle of a serious squabble between the judiciary and the government. Earlier before this case, in Golaknath v Union of India(1967), honourable supreme court argued that the parliament has no power to amend the fundamental rights and they asserted that the constitution-makers never wanted our constitution as firm and Non-flexible one. The court held that the parliament cannot amend the fundamental rights.
Judgement of Golaknath v Union of India(1967)
The issue aroused in this case before the Supreme court of India was that whether the parliament has the absolute power and the power to amend the fundamental rights enshrined under the constitution or not?
the judgment was given in the ratio of 6:5 majority . The Chief Justice of India at that time and with other justices (J.C. Shah, S.M. Sikri, J.M. Shelat, C.A. Vaidiyalingam) wrote the majority opinion. The majority of judges asserted that the parliament has no right to amend the fundamental rights. Fundamental rights are always kept beyond the purview of parliamentary legislation. Therefore, to save the democracy from the arbitrary actions of the parliament, it was held by the majority of the judges that parliament cannot amend the fundamental rights enshrined under Part III of the Constitution of India. The majority was of the opinion that fundamental rights are the same as natural rights and these rights are important for the growth and development of a human being as well as for our nation. Major amendment to the constitution ( 24th , 29th, 25th) had been enacted by Indira Gandhi’s Government through parliament. All these amendments were challenged in the case of Kesavananda Bharti.
Judgement of Kesavanand Bharti V Union of India
This Landmark case gave birth to the concept of Basic structure Doctrine and paved the way for struggle between parliament and judiciary. The amendment (24th, 25th, and 29th) challenged in the case of Golakanth case was held to be valid. This case over-ruled the case of Golaknath v State of Punjab. The Honourable supreme court of India held that though parliament has wide power to amend any part of constitution, such powers were curtailed by maintaining the basic spirit of the constitution. The parliament could not take away certain basic principles which are enshrined in the constitution. The Supreme court gave the basic structure doctrine and held that parliament could take away or amend fundamental rights as long as if it does not violate the basic structure of our constitution.
The majority decision was delivered by S.M. Sikri CJI, K.S. Hegde, B.K. Mukherjea, J.M. Shelat, A.N. Grover, P. Jagmohan Reddy jj. & Khanna J. going with the majority. Whereas the minority opinions were given by A.N. Ray, D.G. Palekar, K.K. Mathew, M.H. Beg, S.N. Dwivedi & Y.V. Chandrachudjj. The minority bench writing separate opinions, didn’t conceded to the fact that there are some provisions which are fundamental. They were on the view to grant complete and unfettered authority to Parliament with respect to power of amendment. The court while delivering the judgement suggested few basic structures that they could point out some basic structure such as Free & Fair Elections, Supremacy of Constitution, Independent judiciary, Secularism, Federal Character of Nation, Separation of Power, Republic & Democratic form of Government and so on . However, the list they prepared is not comprehensive and courts on future can interpret and can add more features they find as Basic Structures.
The judgment of Kesavananda over-ruled Golaknath case in two terms;
1. The decision in Golaknath was confined only to the protection of Fundamental Rights from the purview of Parliament; however, Kesavananda broadened its cover over all the provisions and the previous judgements that are fundamental to the Constitution. In this way the court in Kesavananda increased the ambit of protection of Constitution and limitation on the power of Parliament.
2. The majority bench of Golaknath case was of the opinion that the Parliament has no authority to amend the Fundamental Rights and also they were of the opinion that to have an amendment, it must have to come from the Constituent Assembly. This made Amendment too firm for the formulation and unknowingly made the Constitution too slow to change. Fortunately, Kesavananda overruled Golaknath to this extent and granted the sufficient and necessary flexibility to the Constitution of India.
DOCTRINE OF BASIC STRUCTURE
The Doctrine Basic Structure have not been explicitly mentioned in the Indian Constitution. The idea of this doctrine is to preserve the nature of Indian constitution and to protect the rights and liberties of people. This doctrine helps to protect, preserve and to maintain the spirit of the constitutional document. The Kesavananda Bharati case has brought this doctrine into the spotlight. It was held that the “parliament cannot take away the basic structure of the constitution”. The judgement listed some basic structures of the constitution as, Supremacy of the Constitution, Unity and sovereignty of India, Democratic and republican form of government, Federal character of the Constitution, Secular character of the Constitution, Separation of power, Individual freedom, judicial review also part of basic structure. Article 14 and 21 is also part of the basic structure. The doctrine of Basic structure is also explained by J. Chandrachud in Indria Nehru Gandhi V. Raj Narian (1975) Case like Rule of law, Secularism and freedom of conscience and religion, equality of status and opportunity of an individual’s, sovereign democratic republic states.
Any law or amendment that violates the basic structure of the constitution can be struck down by the Supreme court.
CONCLUSION
Kesavananda is a definitive judgement of the supreme court where due to inherent conflict and authenticity of the Constitutional Machinery was failing. This conflict was resolved when the majority opinion came up with Doctrine of Basic Structure. This 13 judge bench over-ruled the cases (Shankari Prasad, Sajjan Singh, Golaknath) made in the past and presented the various democratic bodies and the institutions borne through Constitution can perform their respective obligations simultaneously. This case reflects judicial creativity of very high order and maintained a fine balance between judiciary and legislature. This case was basically decides the conflict between dictatorship and democracy and nothing can take away the power of judicial review by the courts. However, the bench was very much conscious of the poverty and social backwardness burgeoning in the nation & to eliminate the status of poverty and social backwardness in the society, also the Parliament would need some kinds of tool for its functioning. Therefore, keeping both in their mind, the court has propounded the idea of Basic Structure Doctrine through which the Parliament can bring all the required changes needed and maintain unity integrity of the individual as well as our nation. Thus, the rights and power for which our freedom fighters fought so hard day and night would have wrinkled away is saved. Therefore, this landmark judgment had saved and restored the faith of citizens in Judiciary as well as in legislatures.
About author –
This article is authored by Priya Singh, second year law student at Chanakya National Law University, Patna.
