ARTICLE
31C - POLITY
News:
Supreme Court Mulls
Whether 9-Judge Bench Can Put Article 31 Validity To Test
What's
in the news?
●
While hearing a case to decide whether the
government can acquire and redistribute private property, a 9-judge Bench of
the SC decided to take up another issue of “radical constitutional
consequence”: does Article 31C still exist?
Article
31C of the Indian Constitution:
Article 31C protects laws
enacted to ensure
●
The “material resources of the community”
are distributed to serve the common good (Article
39(b)) and
●
That wealth and the means of production
are not “concentrated” to the “common detriment” (Article 39(c)).
●
As per Article 31C, these particular
directive principles (Articles 39(b) and 39(c)) cannot be challenged by
invoking the right to equality (Article
14) or the rights under Article 19
(freedom of speech, right to assemble peacefully, etc).
Introduction of Article 31C:
●
Article 31C was introduced by the Constitution (25th) Amendment Act 1971.
●
The amendment specifically mentioned the
“Bank Nationalisation Case”, in which the SC stopped the Centre from acquiring
control of 14 commercial banks by enacting the Banking Companies (Acquisition
and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1969.
●
In this case, the court held that the
‘right to compensation’ was not appropriately ensured by the Banking Act.
●
The 25th Amendment sought to surmount the
difficulties placed in the way of giving effect to the Directive Principles of
State Policy. One of the means employed to do so was the introduction of
Article 31C.
Journey
of Article 31C:
Kesavananda
Bharati Case (1973):
●
The 25th amendment was challenged in the
Kesavananda Bharati case (1973) in which 13 judges held by a narrow 7-6
majority that the Constitution has a “basic structure” that cannot be altered,
even by a constitutional amendment.
●
As a part of this verdict, the court struck down the last portion of
Article 31C, which states that no law giving effect to DPSP shall be called
in question in any court on the ground that it does not give effect to such
policy.
●
This opened the door for the court to
examine laws that had been enacted to further Articles 39(b) and 39(c).
42nd
Amendment Act:
●
In 1976, Parliament enacted the
Constitution (42nd) Amendment Act, which expanded
the protection under Article 31C.
●
As a result, every single directive principle (Articles 36-51) was protected
from challenges under Articles 14 and 19 of the Constitution.
●
It was meant to give precedence to the
directive principles over those fundamental rights which hinders socio-economic
reforms for implementing the directive principles.
Minerva
Mills Case:
●
In 1980, in the Minerva Mills v. UoI case,
the SC struck down the above clause of
the 42nd Amendment.
●
The five-judge Bench held that
Parliament’s power to amend the Constitution was limited, and it could not be
used to remove these limitations and grant itself “unlimited” and “absolute”
powers of amendment.
● However, the ruling resulted in a conundrum - By striking down part of the 25th amendment, did the court strike down Article 31C as a whole.