Shankari Prasad v. Union of India (1951)
Shankari Prasad v. Union of India (1951)
Shankari Prasad v. Union of India (1951)
One of the several grounds of challenge was that the expression ‘law’ under
Article 13(2), which prohibits the Parliament from making any laws that abridge
or take away fundamental rights, included not only ordinary laws, but also
amendments. If the court accepted this contention it would have implied that Part
III of the Constitution (which deals with fundamental rights) could never be
amended by the Parliament so as to take away or abridge fundamental rights.
However, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court unanimously rejected this
argument, asserting that the constitutional scheme provided for a clear
demarcation between ‘ordinary law, which is made in exercise of legislative
power, and constitutional law, which is made in exercise of constituent power’.
The net effect of the Supreme Court’s decision in Shankari Prasad was that
amendments to the Constitution could not be reviewed by courts.
Held-
The views of the majority on each issue were as follows:
1. The Twenty-fourth Amendment to the Constitution was valid.
2. The Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitution was valid, except for the clause
ousting the courts’ jurisdiction.
3. The Twenty-ninth Amendment to the Constitution was valid.
4. The Golak Nath judgement, which had asserted that fundamental rights could not be
taken away or nullified by the Parliament, was overruled.
5. There were no implied limitations on the Parliament’s power to amend the
Constitution under Article 368.
Bottomline-
Although the Parliament had the power to amend any part of the Constitution, it
could not use this power to alter or destroy the ‘basic structure’—or framework—of
the Constitution.
All constitutional amendments enacted after the date on which the Kesavananda
judgement was delivered would have to pass the ‘basic-structure filter’ created by the
Supreme Court. The court empowered itself to judge the constitutionality of
amendments and revoke any that compromised the essential features of the
Constitution.
In delineating the basic structure of the Constitution, most judges relied upon the
Preamble, the fundamental rights and the directive principles of state policy. The only
certainty is that judges will be free to mould the ‘basic structure’ corpus to emasculate
any constitutional amendment that strikes at the ‘spirit of Indian democracy’.
The court unanimously concluded that the government could not blatantly exploit the
Ninth Schedule as the ‘black hole’ of the Constitution. Apart from marking a significant
development in the Supreme Court’s basic structure jurisprudence, Coelho has
preserved the supremacy of the judiciary in constitutional adjudication.