Kesavananda Bharati vs. the State of Kerala

Kesavananda Bharati Sripadagalvaru & Ors. v. State of Kerala & Anr. (Writ Petition (Civil) 135 of 1970), popularly known as the Kesavananda Bharati verdict, is a significant Supreme Court of India case that articulated the Indian Constitution’s fundamental structure theory. The Fundamental Rights Lawsuit is another name for the case. The court asserted its power to strike down constitutional changes that violated the constitution’s core framework.

Kesavananda Bharati vs State of Kerala citation

Analysis by Kesavananda Bharati

The Kerala Land Reforms Act of 1963 has begun to influence the property of various religious institutions in India, including Swami Kesavananda Bharati’s religious math. As a result, he challenged Kerala’s land reforms in 1970. The Parliament enacted the Twenty-ninth Amendment Act, 1972, while the judicial procedures were still ongoing.

The Ninth Schedule of this Act was amended to include some of the land changes, significantly complicating the situation for religious groups. Kesavananda Bharati and his lawyer Nani Palkhivala contested the constitutional legitimacy of the amendment, as well as the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth amendments.

The twenty-fourth amendment, enacted in 1971 in response to the Golaknath case, indicated that constitutional modifications were not deemed legislation under Article 13’s purview. This amendment gives Parliament unrestricted freedom to change or repeal any provision of the Indian Constitution. In 1971, the twenty-fifth amendment was ratified.

It had given priority to Articles 39(b) and (c) of the Directive Principles of State Policy over fundamental rights like equality, freedom, and property. It also hampered the court’s ability to exercise judicial review. 

Kesavananda Bharati case

Swami Kesavananda was born on the 9th of December, 1940. He just so happened to be a priest from Kerala’s Ednir Math. The concerned government attempted to transform the math’s land into the state-owned property by enacting the Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1963 (as amended in 1969). By defying this attempt, the priest Swami Kesavananda knocked on the court’s door. A historical change was used to bring this matter to a close.

For two primary reasons, the case of Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala marks a watershed moment in Indian constitutional history. To begin with, when the Golak Nath case rendered the Indian Parliament unable to change Part III of the Constitution, this case restored their ability to do so. The Basic Structure Doctrine, on the other hand, limited the legislative authority’s scope.

Second, it rejected the clause on judicial review incorporated in the Indian Constitution’s Twenty-Fifth Amendment in 1971. Kesavananda Bharati, often known as the Fundamental Rights Case, was the rescuer of Indian democracy. 

The Kesavananda Bharati case has a complicated history.

Given the government’s reaction to the court’s decision in the Golak Nath case, such a challenge to the Kesavananda Bharati case was unavoidable (1967). In the Golak Nath case, an 11-judge bench ruled that Parliament could not change the Constitution’s Fundamental Rights, including the Right to Property. Indira Gandhi’s administration was not pleased, therefore Parliament approved large modifications permitting revisions to Fundamental Rights and removing some property concerns from court scrutiny.

The then-PM Indira Gandhi’s administration adopted important constitutional modifications (the 24th, 25th, 26th, and 29th) in the early 1970s to overturn Supreme Court decisions in RC Cooper (1970), Madhavrao Scindia (1970), and the aforementioned Golak Nath case.

The court overturned Indira Gandhi’s bank nationalisation programme in the RC Cooper case, and the removal of past rulers’ privy purses in Madhavrao Scindia.

Judgement: The Constitution’s ‘Basic Structure’:

The Constitutional Bench, led by Chief Justice SM Sikri, decided 7-6 that Parliament has the power to amend every article of the Constitution but should not change the ‘fundamental structure’ of the document.

The court ruled that under Article 368, which gives Parliament modifying powers, something from the original Constitution must remain in order for the new amendment to take effect.

The court did not define the ‘fundamental structure,’ and merely named a few concepts as being part of it – federalism, secularism, and democracy. 

The arguments commenced on October 31, 1972, and ended on March 23, 1973.

On April 24, 1973, Chief Justice Sikri and 12 Supreme Court judges gathered to give the most significant ruling in the court’s history. The arguments in the case of Kesavananda Bharati v State of Kerala lasted 68 days, starting on October 31, 1972, and ended on March 23, 1973.

A 13-judge Constitution Bench concluded 7-6 that the Constitution’s ‘fundamental structure’ is inviolable and cannot be altered by Parliament.

Since then, the fundamental structure theory has been a pillar of Indian constitutional law.

Conclusion

The case of Kesavananda Bharati vs. the State of Kerala, described above, was heard for 68 days, from October 31, 1972, to March 23, 1973. The amount of time and effort that had gone into the preparation of this case was incredible. Hundreds of examples had been referenced, and the then-Attorney-General had created a comparison chart analysing the provisions of 71 various countries’ constitutions.

The majority of the court wanted to protect the Constitution by keeping its core principles. The decision was founded on reasonable logic and came after a thorough examination of several factors.