Landmark Judgements on Constitutional Law

Final part of the constitutional law series

What are landmark judgements?

Landmark judgements, in this particular context, refer to the cases pertaining to the matters of constitutional law that are frequently discussed when the matters of interpretation & deliberation are being discussed in the courts.

These cases have attained the status of being the ‘landmark’ ones as they have been referred to by the courts namely the High Courts and the Supreme Court while deciding on various issues such as privacy of citizens, basic structure doctrine etc.

These judgements are also important as they decide a particular position of constitutional law and the rules evolved in these cases also called the ratio decidendi is applicable to other matters that might have the same elements as the landmark cases.

Henceforth, the courts maintain these judgements on record and it is imperative to note that in order for a position of law decided by a landmark judgement to change, the matters must be revisited and reinterpreted by a bench whose strength is higher than the one which decided the landmark judgement.

The Concept of Directive Principles of State Policies

Some landmark judgements

Below are some important landmark judgements pertaining to Indian Constitutional law :

1. His Holiness Kesavananda Bharati vs State of Kerala (Kesavananda Bharati Case ) — Landmark Judgement by Supreme Court 13 Judges Bench which propounded the Basic Structure Doctrine or Essential Feature Theory.
   In this case, Golak Nath Case was overruled and the Bench in the majority said that Parliament can amend any part of the Indian Constitution but it can not destroy the basic structure. SC said the parliament has limited amending power.
2. Maneka Gandhi vs Union of India — Article 21 Case / Era of Right to life started expanding from this case.
3. Justice K S Puttaswamy vs Union of India — Right to Privacy Case
4. Shankari Prasad vs Union of India — Power of (Provisional) Parliament to Amend Constitution and especially Fundamental Rights
5. Sajjan Singh vs the State of Rajasthan — Power of Parliament to Amend the Constitution
6. A K Gopalan vs the State of Madras — Preventive Detention Act 1950
7. Romesh Thappar vs the State of Madras — Freedom of Speech — Post-publication prevention of circulation of crossroad weekly magazine resulted in the violation of freedom of speech [This judgment resulted in an amendment in Article 19 of the Indian Constitution]
8. Brij Bhushan Sharma vs Delhi — Freedom of Speech — Pre Publication Censorship of Organizer weekly resulted in the violation of Freedom of Speech as per Supreme Court [This judgment resulted in an amendment in Article 19 of Indian Constitution]
9. State of Madras vs Champakam Dorairajan — Caste based reservation in admission to the educational institution [This judgment resulted in an amendment in Article 15 of the Indian Constitution]
10. M P Sharma vs Satish Chandra Case — Right to Privacy Issue
11. Kharak Singh vs State of Uttar Pradesh — Whether privacy is a part of fundamental right in our constitution
12. In Re Beruberi Case — Cession of a part of the territory of India, Exchange of the enclave with Pakistan
13. Golaknath vs State of Punjab Case — Power of Parliament to amend the Constitution. In the 11 Judges case, Supreme Court held that Part 3 of the Indian Constitution is fundamental in nature and parliament can not amend the Fundamental rights given in the Indian Constitution.
    Court also held that Article 368 provides a procedure for the constitutional amendments and Amendment to the constitution is a law as per article 13 of the Indian Constitution. Court also applied the principle of Prospective overruling in the Golaknath case.
14. His Highness Maharajadhiraja Madhav Rao Jiwaji Rao Scindia vs Union of India — In this case, abolition of the privy purse of erstwhile rulers were abolished through presidential order so the rulers challenged that decision of the government. A constitution bench restored the privy purse of rulers and held the Presidential order unconstitutional.
15. ADM Jabalpur vs Shivkant Shukla Case — One of the most contentious decisions of the Supreme Court of India. This case is also known as the habeas corpus case.
    During the emergency, many opposition leaders were detained. They challenged the govt action through writ petitions in various High Courts. Decisions of High Courts were challenged in Supreme Court and SC held that Fundamental Rights Can be suspended during an emergency. The right to move to High Courts under Article 226 during the emergency was an issue in this case.

Recommended: 10 Judgements That Changed India by Zia Mody.

With this, the constitutional law series comes to an end. We will be commencing with the tort law series next week.

Stay tuned!

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