Chief Justice of India Surya Kant has termed the Kesavananda Bharati verdict of 1973, which laid down the basic structure doctrine of the Constitution, as one of the most profound affirmations of the country’s commitment to constitutionalism and the rule of law.
Speaking at the inauguration of the International Mooting Academy for Advocacy, Negotiation, Dispute Adjudication, Arbitration & Resolution (IMAANDAAR) at the OP Jindal University in Haryana on Saturday, the CJI said the verdict did not stand as a mere legal precedent or a relic of the past, but as a map for charting the future.
The basic structure doctrine continued to operate as a constitutional gyroscope, the conscience that prevented democratic institutions from descending into absolutism even as they underwent modernisation, technological transformation, and structural reform.
As per the CJI, the true brilliance of the Kesavananda case lay in recognising that what could not be amended was what made the Constitution meaningful. It was the soul, which was painstakingly designed by the framers of the Constitution under the visionary guidance of Dr BR Ambedkar.
Likening the Constitution to the traditional Indian khaat (cot), the CJI said the basic structure doctrine was the intricate weave of rope that prevented the constitutional framework from collapsing under the weight of political expediency.
During the event, the university campus hosted a re-enactment of Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala, marking 50 years of the landmark decision.
The CJI said that every generation, which revisited the Kesavananda Bharati case, rediscovered that the Constitution’s strength did not lie in ink or parchment, but in the probity of those who interpret and defend it. Its survival has always depended on a community of custodians who read it not as a frozen command, but as a living charge.
The true legacy of Kesavananda Bharati was the affirmation that India’s democratic culture was supple but never fragile. It would bend without breaking and adapt without relinquishing its moral compass.
The endurance of the Constitution as a structure did not lie merely in its text but in the calibrated interplay of restraint, institutional balance and constitutional morality, he added.
As per the CJI, the Kesavananda verdict formed the moral and structural core of the country’s constitutional democracy. The decision marked a moment when the Supreme Court, still in its constitutional adolescence, displayed a depth of institutional maturity rarely expected of a young republic.
At stake was a question of civilisational gravity: whether a transient parliamentary majority could be permitted to distort the foundational identity of the Constitution through unfettered amending power under Article 368.
Placing the Indian experience in a comparative frame, the CJI noted that constitutional democracies such as the United States and the United Kingdom confronted analogous institutional strains during the New Deal crisis and debates over parliamentary sovereignty.
India, despite lacking centuries of constitutional evolution, responded with an instinctive fidelity to the separation of powers—an ethos later codified in key decisions such as Minerva Mills v. Union of India (1980), Indira Nehru Gandhi v. Raj Narain (1975), and I.R. Coelho v. State of Tamil Nadu (2007).
The verdicts fortified the principle that while Parliament enjoyed vast constituent powers, those powers remained constrained by the inviolable constitutional architecture.
The CJI termed the basic structure doctrine as not a judicial invention but a rediscovery of an obligation inherent in the Constitution’s design: that all public power—executive, legislative, or judicial—must remain answerable to principle.
This ethos is visible in the Preamble, the distribution of legislative and executive competencies, the guarantees of Part III, and the oath of constitutional fidelity that binds every judge, he noted.
The basic structure doctrine was neither a flight of judicial fancy nor an indulgence in philosophical abstraction. It was an act of constitutional archaeology that the judges unearthed from within the four corners of the Constitution; those foundational principles had always lain embedded in its design, waiting to be revealed by interpretation rather than invention, he pointed out.
The doctrine merely articulated what the Constitution had always implied: no authority may amend away the promise of justice, liberty, equality, or the rule of law, added CJI Kant.
He underscored that constitutional endurance ultimately depended on individual integrity. In an era shaped by deepfakes, proliferating misinformation and a troubling rise in coercive digital processes, integrity is no longer an aspirational virtue but an operational necessity for both the judiciary and the Bar. The Constitution survived only as long as those sworn to defend it treated morality as a non-negotiable discipline.
Speaking on the occasion, Supreme Court judge Justice BV Nagarathna emphasised that judicial independence and the supremacy of law operate as mutually reinforcing guarantees of the rule of law, a principle repeatedly affirmed in decisions such as S.P. Gupta v. Union of India and the Judges Cases trilogy.
Another Apex Court judge, Justice P.S. Narasimha, characterised the basic structure doctrine as an affirmation of constitutional supremacy rather than judicial supremacy. Supreme Court judge Justice MM Sundresh observed that the doctrine’s essence was never exhaustively defined because it reflected principles, such as justice, liberty, and equality, which preexisted statutory text and must be safeguarded whenever they were imperilled.
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