BPSC 69th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 108 of 144

Correct — B, Kesavananda Bharati vs. State of Kerala. Decided on 24 April 1973 — Kesavananda Bharati Sripadagalvaru v. State of Kerala, Writ Petition (Civil) 135 of 1970, reported as AIR 1973 SC 1461 and (1973) 4 SCC 225 — it was heard by thirteen judges, the largest Bench the Supreme Court has ever assembled, and decided 7:6. The doctrine appears in the judgment itself, not in a later gloss on it. Sikri CJ, answering the Attorney-General's argument that every provision of the Constitution is equally essential, wrote at paragraph 316: "every provision of the Constitution can be amended provided in the result the basic foundation and structure of the Constitution remains the same. The basic structure may be said to consist of the following features: (1) Supremacy of the Constitution; (2) Republican and Democratic form of Government. (3) Secular character of the Constitution; (4) Separation of powers between the Legislature, the executive and the judiciary; (5) Federal character of the Constitution." Paragraph 317 adds that "the above structure is built on the basic foundation, i.e., the dignity and freedom of the individual … This cannot by any form of amendment be destroyed." What the Court did was a trade, and that is what makes it the origin. It upheld the Constitution (Twenty-fourth Amendment) Act, 1971 and restored to Parliament the power to amend any Article, Fundamental Rights included — a power Golaknath had denied six years earlier — but it attached a limit the Constitution nowhere spells out: the amending power under Article 368 "is not wide enough to totally abrogate … or emasculating or destroying in a way as would amount to abrogation of any of the fundamental rights or other essential elements of the basic structure of the Constitution". Permission plus an implied limit, stated for the first time.

• (a)Golaknath vs. State of Punjab — I.C. Golaknath v. State of Punjab was decided on 27 February 1967 by eleven judges, Subba Rao CJ presiding, and it held something stricter and quite different: that a constitutional amendment is "law" within Article 13(2), so Fundamental Rights cannot be abridged or taken away by the Article 368 procedure at all. That is an absolute bar on one Part of the Constitution, not a limit drawn from the Constitution's structure. It reversed Shankari Prasad (1951) and Sajjan Singh (1965) using prospective overruling. The phrase "basic structure" occurs in the Golaknath report only twice — once summarising counsel's contention, once inside a quotation from American commentary — never as the Court's own test.
• (c)Minerva Mills vs. Union of India — Minerva Mills (1980) applied the doctrine seven years after it existed; it could not have originated it. Its work was to strike down clauses (4) and (5) of Article 368, inserted by the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976, which had tried to put constitutional amendments beyond judicial review and to declare the amending power unlimited — provisions that only made sense as an attempt to undo Kesavananda, and could only be struck down because the basic-structure limit was already law. Minerva Mills is quoted so often for the harmony of Parts III and IV that candidates mistake fame for priority.
• (d)Both (A) and (B) — The combination option, and the reason it tempts is that Golaknath genuinely belongs to this line — Kesavananda was convened to reconsider it — and that the phrase does have a pre-history. But that pre-history is not in Golaknath. It is in Sajjan Singh (1965), where Mudholkar J. asked in obiter whether "making a change in a basic feature of the Constitution can be regarded merely as an amendment or would it be, in effect, rewriting a part of the Constitution" — a doubt he reserved, not a holding. Golaknath took an entirely different route. "For the first time" admits exactly one case, and the two named here decided opposite things.

The basic-structure doctrine is the answer to one question the Constitution never settles: is Parliament's power to amend under Article 368 unlimited? The Supreme Court gave three different answers in twenty-two years. In Shankari Prasad (1951) and Sajjan Singh (1965) it upheld an unlimited amending power, holding that an amendment is not "law" for the purposes of Article 13. In Golaknath (1967) it reversed itself and held that Fundamental Rights are altogether beyond the amending power. Parliament replied with the Twenty-fourth Amendment in 1971, declaring in terms that Article 368 does confer constituent power and that Article 13 shall not apply to amendments. Kesavananda (1973) then found the middle position that has held ever since: the Twenty-fourth Amendment is valid and Parliament may amend any Article, but no amendment may damage or destroy the Constitution's basic structure. The doctrine is judge-made and open-ended by design — the Constitution contains no list of basic features, and Sikri CJ's own list already named the supremacy of the Constitution, the republican and democratic form of government, the secular character of the Constitution, the separation of powers and the federal character, and later benches have added others — judicial review, free and fair elections and the rule of law among them.

The operative words in the stem are "for the first time", and three dates settle everything: Golaknath 1967, Kesavananda 1973, Minerva Mills 1980. Minerva Mills is out on chronology alone. Golaknath is out on substance, and the cleanest test is to ask what each case permitted. Golaknath said Parliament may not touch Fundamental Rights at all. Kesavananda said Parliament may touch them — including by the Twenty-fourth Amendment it upheld — but not so as to destroy the Constitution's identity. Those are contradictory rules, so they cannot both be the origin of the same doctrine; and if Golaknath had already laid the doctrine down, there would have been no reason to assemble thirteen judges in 1973 to reconsider it. Note the format point too: option (D) is written as "Both (A) and (B)", pointing back at letters inside its own list — it asks you to accept Golaknath and Kesavananda jointly, which a question saying "for the first time" cannot allow. Where a combination option appears against a superlative — first, only, largest — the superlative usually kills it.

• Kesavananda Bharati Sripadagalvaru v. State of Kerala, W.P.(C) 135 of 1970, decided 24 April 1973, AIR 1973 SC 1461 / (1973) 4 SCC 225 — thirteen judges, the largest Bench ever assembled by the Supreme Court, decided 7:6
• Sikri CJ, para 316: the basic structure "may be said to consist of" supremacy of the Constitution; a republican and democratic form of government; the secular character of the Constitution; separation of powers between the legislature, the executive and the judiciary; and the federal character of the Constitution — para 317 adds that it rests on "the dignity and freedom of the individual"
• I.C. Golaknath v. State of Punjab, decided 27 February 1967, AIR 1967 SC 1643 — eleven judges, Subba Rao CJ: an amendment is "law" under Article 13(2), so Fundamental Rights cannot be abridged by Article 368; Shankari Prasad (1951) and Sajjan Singh (1965) reversed, with prospective overruling
• The ancestry of the phrase lies in Sajjan Singh (1965), where Mudholkar J. observed that the Preamble "appears to be an epitome of the basic features of the Constitution" and asked whether changing a basic feature would be an amendment or "rewriting a part of the Constitution" — obiter, and reserved
• Kesavananda upheld the Constitution (Twenty-fourth Amendment) Act, 1971, which had restored Parliament's power to amend Part III after Golaknath
• Minerva Mills v. Union of India (1980) applied the doctrine to strike down clauses (4) and (5) of Article 368 inserted by the Forty-second Amendment, 1976; the first constitutional amendment actually invalidated on basic-structure grounds was clause (4) of Article 329A in Indira Nehru Gandhi v. Raj Narain (1975)

• Reading "for the first time" loosely and taking the combination option because Golaknath sits in the same line of cases — a doctrine has exactly one origin
• Crediting Golaknath with the doctrine; it barred amendment of Fundamental Rights outright, a stricter and incompatible rule that Kesavananda replaced
• Treating Minerva Mills as the source because it is the case most quoted on the balance between Parts III and IV, when it applied a doctrine already seven years old

BPSC asks flat case recall and then plants a combination option to catch loose reading — here option (D) is "Both (A) and (B)", and the Commission has used the same device on other one-line polity items. UPSC does not ask "which case"; it tests whether you know the doctrine is judge-made rather than written. In 2020 it offered the statement that the Constitution itself defines its basic structure in terms of federalism, secularism, fundamental rights and democracy — false precisely because that list comes from Kesavananda and appears in no Article.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  How many judges constituted the Bench that decided Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala?

  • (a)Seven
  • (b)Nine
  • (c)Eleven
  • (d)Thirteen

  Answer(d) Thirteen — the largest Bench the Supreme Court has ever assembled; it decided 7:6 on 24 April 1973. Eleven judges sat in Golaknath (1967).

• practice — not a real PYQ

  In which case did the Supreme Court strike down clauses (4) and (5) of Article 368, which had been inserted by the Forty-second Amendment?

  • (a)Golaknath vs. State of Punjab
  • (b)Kesavananda Bharati vs. State of Kerala
  • (c)Minerva Mills vs. Union of India
  • (d)I. R. Coelho vs. State of Tamil Nadu

  Answer(c) Minerva Mills vs. Union of India (1980) — those clauses had sought to bar judicial review of amendments and declare the amending power unlimited, which the Court held destroyed the basic structure.