Fill in the Blank: Doctrine of Severability allows the _______ part of a law to be retained.

Correct — C. Article 13 makes a law void only to the extent of its inconsistency with the Fundamental Rights.

So a court strikes down the offending provision and keeps the rest, as long as the rest can stand on its own.

The part that survives is the valid part → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Repealed — Repealed is the legislature's act of withdrawing a law. Severability is a court's tool in judicial review, and it is not about repealed parts.
• (b)
  Inconsistent — Inconsistent is the part the doctrine removes. Article 13 voids a law to the extent of the inconsistency, so this part is struck, not retained.
• (d)
  Unconstitutional — Unconstitutional is the part a court severs and strikes down. Keeping it would defeat the doctrine's purpose.

The doctrine of severability asks whether a law can survive once its unconstitutional part is cut out. If the valid and invalid parts are separable, the valid part stands.

If they are so bound together that the legislature would not have passed the rest alone, the whole law falls.

In A.K. Gopalan (1950), the Supreme Court struck down Section 14 of the Preventive Detention Act and upheld the rest.

Key facts

• Article 13(1) voids pre-Constitution laws to the extent of their inconsistency with the Fundamental Rights.
• Article 13(2) bars laws that take away Fundamental Rights, and voids them to the extent of the contravention.
• In A.K. Gopalan (1950), Section 14 of the Preventive Detention Act was struck down and the rest of the Act upheld.
• In Kihoto Hollohan (1992), Paragraph 7 of the Tenth Schedule was struck down and the rest of the anti-defection law saved.

Common traps

• Picking Inconsistent because the word appears in Article 13: that is the part removed, not kept.
• Assuming one bad clause voids the whole Act: under severability, the rest survives if it can stand alone.

No directly related past PYQ was found.