Case Introduction
Keshawanand Bharti challenged the Kerala land reforms legislation in 1970, which imposed restrictions on the management of religious property.
Kesavananda Bharati:
He challenged the Kerala land reforms legislation in 1970, which imposed restrictions on the management of the religious property.
The case was challenged under Article 26, concerning the right to manage religiously owned property without government interference.
A 13-judge bench was set up by the Supreme Court, the biggest so far, to hear the case.
The question underlying the case also included: Was the power of Parliament to amend the Constitution unlimited? In other words, could Parliament alter, amend, abrogate any part of the Constitution even to the extent of taking away all fundamental rights?
Background:
The Supreme Court conceded absolute power to Parliament in amending the Constitution, as was seen in the verdicts in the Shankari Prasad case (1951).
In both cases, the court had ruled that the term “law” in Article 13 must be taken to mean rules or regulations made in the exercise of ordinary legislative power and not amendments to the Constitution made in the exercise of constituent power under Article 368.
This means Parliament had the power to amend any part of the Constitution including Fundamental rights.
But Article 13(2) reads - "The State shall not make any law which takes away or abridges the right conferred by this Part (i.e. Part-III) and any law made in contravention of this clause shall, to the extent of the contravention, be void."
However, in the Golaknath case (1967), the Supreme Court held that Parliament could not amend Fundamental Rights, and power to amend the Constitution would be only with a Constituent Assembly.
The Court held that an amendment under Article 368 is "law" within the meaning of Article 13 of the Constitution and therefore if an amendment "takes away or abridges" a Fundamental Right conferred by Part III, it is void
Judgement
The landmark judgment was delivered on 24th April 1973 by a thin majority of 7:6 wherein the majority held that any provision of the Indian Constitution can be amended by the Parliament to fulfill its socio-economic obligations that were guaranteed to the citizens as given in the Preamble, provided that such amendment did not change the Constitution’s basic structure.
The minority, however, in their dissenting opinion, were wary of giving the Parliament unlimited amending power.
The court held that the 24th Constitutional Amendment was entirely valid. But it found the second part of the 25th Constitutional Amendment to be ultra vires.
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