MPSC 2024 Prelims Paper-I · Question 73 of 100

Correct — option (2), '(B), (C) and (D)'. Three of the four printed statements hold and the first does not. Statement (A) is the false one: the case was indeed heard by a bench of thirteen judges, the largest the Supreme Court has ever assembled, but it was headed by Chief Justice S. M. Sikri, not by A. N. Ray. Justice Ray sat on that bench and was among the dissenters; he was appointed Chief Justice of India two days after the judgment was delivered on 24 April 1973, superseding three judges senior to him — Justices Shelat, Hegde and Grover — who thereupon resigned. The paper's placing of Ray at the head of the bench inverts one of the best-known episodes in the Court's history, in which the majority judgment and the supersession that followed it are always narrated together. Statement (B) is correct: the bench divided seven to six, and the majority propounded the doctrine that Parliament's power to amend under Article 368 is wide but not unlimited, since it cannot be used to damage or destroy the basic structure of the Constitution. Statement (C) is correct as well: the decision overruled Golak Nath, in which a bench of eleven judges had held in 1967 that Parliament could not abridge or take away a fundamental right by constitutional amendment at all. Kesavananda replaced that flat prohibition with a different and more flexible limit — Parliament may amend any part of the Constitution, fundamental rights included, provided the basic structure survives. Statement (D) is an evaluative one, and the standard commentary supports it: in reading into Article 368 a restriction that the text does not spell out, the Court went beyond the words of the Constitution to protect its core, and the case is universally cited as the leading instance of judicial creativity or activism in Indian constitutional law.

• (1)(A), (B) and (C) — This option keeps the two true statements about the majority and about Golak Nath but adds the false statement about the composition of the bench. The number thirteen in statement (A) is right and the name is wrong, which is exactly the kind of half-truth this format is built on; a candidate who checks only the size of the bench will accept the statement and lose the mark. Chief Justice S. M. Sikri presided, delivered the leading judgment of the majority, and retired the day after it was pronounced.
• (3)(B) Only — Restricting the answer to the seven-six majority ignores two statements that are equally true. The case did change the position laid down in Golak Nath, which had held fundamental rights to be beyond the amending power altogether, and it is the standard example of judicial activism in Indian constitutional law. A candidate choosing this option has usually been over-cautious, treating any statement that involves interpretation — such as the characterisation in statement (D) — as unsafe. In a question of this kind an evaluative statement is graded as the settled commentary grades it, not discarded because it is a judgment rather than a date.
• (4)(A), (B), (C) and (D) — Accepting all four requires accepting that A. N. Ray headed the bench, which he did not. This is the option chosen by a candidate who knows the case in outline — thirteen judges, seven to six, basic structure, Golak Nath overruled — and does not pause on the name attached to the bench. The supersession of the three senior judges immediately after the judgment is the very reason Ray's name is associated with Kesavananda in most accounts, so the paper's distractor is drawn from a real connection made at the wrong point in the story.

Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala, decided in 1973, is the case in which the Supreme Court settled the limits of Parliament's power to amend the Constitution. The petitioner, the head of a mutt in Kasaragod in Kerala, had challenged State land reform legislation affecting the property of his religious establishment, and the proceedings widened into an examination of the Twenty-fourth, Twenty-fifth and Twenty-ninth Amendments. A bench of thirteen judges — the largest ever constituted — heard the matter under Chief Justice S. M. Sikri, and by a majority of seven to six held that Article 368 confers a wide power of amendment which nevertheless stops short of altering the basic structure or framework of the Constitution. The doctrine was not defined exhaustively; the judges offered illustrative features such as the supremacy of the Constitution, the republican and democratic form of government, its secular character, the separation of powers and the federal character of the union, and later benches have added to the list case by case, including free and fair elections, judicial review and the rule of law. The decision overruled Golak Nath, which had denied Parliament any power to abridge fundamental rights by amendment, and it became the shield against which the Thirty-ninth Amendment was struck down in the Indira Nehru Gandhi case in 1975 and parts of the Forty-second Amendment in Minerva Mills in 1980. The immediate political consequence — the supersession of three senior judges and the appointment of A. N. Ray, a dissenter, as Chief Justice — is inseparable from the case in every account of it.

Landmark judgments are a fixed part of MPSC's polity section, and the Commission tests them by printing several statements of which one carries a substituted name, a changed date or an altered numerical detail. The defence is to hold each landmark case as a short structured record: year, the bench and who presided, the majority, what was decided, what it overruled, and what followed from it. For Kesavananda that record is 1973, thirteen judges under Chief Justice Sikri, seven to six, basic structure doctrine, Golak Nath overruled, and A. N. Ray appointed Chief Justice immediately afterwards over three seniors. Note also how this question handles an evaluative statement: statement (D) offers a characterisation rather than a fact, and it is treated as correct because the settled commentary treats it so. Candidates often hesitate over such statements; the practical rule is that a characterisation which every standard text repeats is intended to be accepted.

• Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala was decided on 24 April 1973 by a bench of thirteen judges, the largest ever constituted by the Supreme Court, presided over by Chief Justice S. M. Sikri.
• The bench divided seven to six, and the majority laid down that Parliament may amend any part of the Constitution under Article 368 but may not damage or destroy its basic structure.
• The decision overruled Golak Nath v. State of Punjab (1967), in which the Court had held that Parliament could not abridge or take away fundamental rights by amendment.
• Two days after the judgment, Justice A. N. Ray, one of the dissenters, was appointed Chief Justice of India, superseding three judges senior to him, who resigned.
• The basic structure doctrine was later applied to strike down the Thirty-ninth Amendment in the Indira Nehru Gandhi case in 1975 and parts of the Forty-second Amendment in Minerva Mills in 1980.

• Attaching A. N. Ray's name to the Kesavananda bench; he sat on it and dissented, and became Chief Justice only after the judgment
• Accepting a statement because the number in it is right while the name attached is wrong
• Confusing Golak Nath's position, that fundamental rights cannot be amended at all, with Kesavananda's, that they can be amended but not so as to destroy the basic structure
• Discarding an evaluative statement such as 'this seems to be an instance of judicial activism' merely because it is a characterisation rather than a date

MPSC asks landmark cases as statement lists in which the year, the size of the bench, the majority and the doctrine are each candidates for alteration, and as one-line questions naming a doctrine and asking for the case that established it. The set of cases used is small and predictable — Golak Nath, Kesavananda, Maneka Gandhi, Minerva Mills, S. R. Bommai, Vishaka — so each is worth holding as the same short record of year, bench, holding and consequence. The Commission also likes to pair a case with what it overruled, which is why the Golak Nath link is printed here as a separate statement.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  In Golak Nath v. State of Punjab (1967), the Supreme Court held that :

  • (a)Parliament cannot abridge or take away fundamental rights by a constitutional amendment
  • (b)Parliament may amend fundamental rights but not the basic structure of the Constitution
  • (c)A constitutional amendment is ordinary law for all purposes
  • (d)The directive principles prevail over the fundamental rights in all cases

  Answer(a) Parliament cannot abridge or take away fundamental rights by a constitutional amendment — that was the holding later overruled in Kesavananda Bharati, which allowed such amendments provided the basic structure of the Constitution is not damaged or destroyed.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which of the following was struck down by the Supreme Court by applying the basic structure doctrine ?

  • (a)The Twenty-fourth Amendment in its entirety
  • (b)Clauses of the Forty-second Amendment in the Minerva Mills case
  • (c)The Right to Information Act, 2005
  • (d)The Seventh Amendment reorganising the States

  Answer(b) Clauses of the Forty-second Amendment in the Minerva Mills case — the Court held in 1980 that the provisions giving Parliament unlimited amending power and immunising amendments from judicial review destroyed the basic structure. The Twenty-fourth Amendment itself was upheld in Kesavananda Bharati.