Constitutional Law of India-I

Sources of the Constitution, its salient features, the Preamble and its legal status, and the formation of new States. These are the foundational topics — almost everything later in the subject refers back to them.

The Constitution draws openly on other constitutions. Dr. Ambedkar defended this directly: there is nothing wrong in borrowing the best features of other systems and adapting them to Indian conditions. Roughly 250 of the original 395 Articles also came from the Government of India Act, 1935.

Worth practising both directions — feature to country, and country to feature. It is the part of this topic most often tested.

It is the longest written constitution of any sovereign country. Five reasons are usually given:

• Geography — the size and diversity of the territory needed detailed provisions for different regions, States and Union Territories.
• Diversity — social, religious, linguistic and cultural plurality required elaborate safeguards.
• Historical factors — heavy reliance on the Government of India Act, 1935, itself a very detailed statute.
• Centre–State relations — one document governs both the Union and all States, unlike the U.S. where States have their own constitutions.
• A single unified document — structure, rights, duties, administration and emergency powers all consolidated in one text rather than left to convention.

• Written and codified, unlike Britain’s largely unwritten constitution.
• The lengthiest constitution in the world.
• Sovereign — internally and externally independent.
• Secular — no State religion; Articles 25–28.
• Federal with a unitary bias — often described as “federal in form, unitary in spirit”.
• A blend of rigid and flexible — some provisions amendable by simple majority, others needing special majority plus State ratification under Art. 368.
• Independent judiciary, separate from the Executive and Legislature.
• Supremacy of the Constitution — all organs derive authority from it.
• Fundamental Rights, including the Right to Equality under Articles 14–18.

The Preamble is the introductory statement setting out the Constitution’s objectives and philosophy — often called its “identity card”. The term comes from the Latin praeambulus, meaning to go before.

The 42nd Amendment, 1976

Inserted Socialist, Secular and Integrity into the Preamble. “Unity” was already present in the original text; the amendment added “Integrity” alongside it, so that “Unity of the Nation” became “Unity and Integrity of the Nation”.

This is the core case-law sequence for the topic, and the answer changed over time.

Article 3 empowers Parliament to form new States, alter boundaries and change names by simple majority, subject to the President referring the Bill to the affected State legislature for its views. The States Reorganisation Act, 1956 — following the Fazl Ali Commission — redrew most boundaries on linguistic lines and underlies the whole sequence below.

The Article count continues to move as amendments are passed, so it is best carried as an approximate figure rather than a fixed one. Parts added by amendment include Part IVA (Fundamental Duties, 1976), Part IXA (Municipalities, 1992), Part IXB (Co-operative Societies, 2011) and Part XIVA (Tribunals, 1976).

Part II of the Constitution deals with citizenship — the legal relationship between an individual and the State that carries full membership of the political community. Articles 5 to 11 address who was a citizen at the commencement of the Constitution; everything after that is governed by ordinary legislation.

The constitutional provisions

Article 11 is the operative one. It gives Parliament plenary power to make any provision relating to acquisition and termination of citizenship. Articles 5–10 are effectively transitional, fixing the position as at 26 January 1950; the continuing law is statutory.

The Citizenship Act, 1955

Five modes of acquisition:

Three modes of loss: renunciation (voluntary declaration), termination (automatic on voluntarily acquiring foreign citizenship — the statutory echo of Article 9), and deprivation (compulsory, by government order, on specified grounds such as fraud in obtaining citizenship or disloyalty).

Part III runs from Article 12 to Article 35. Before any individual right is considered, two threshold questions must be answered: against whom are these rights enforceable, and what happens to a law that conflicts with them. Articles 12 and 13 answer those two questions respectively.

Article 12 — the definition of ‘State’

Fundamental Rights are, with limited exceptions, enforceable against the State rather than against private persons. Article 12 therefore determines the reach of the whole of Part III. It includes:

• The Government and Parliament of India
• The Government and Legislature of each State
• All local authorities — municipalities, panchayats, district boards, improvement trusts
• Other authorities — the expansive limb, and the one that has generated the case law

Article 13 — laws inconsistent with Fundamental Rights

All laws inconsistent with Part III are void to the extent of the inconsistency. Article 13 is the textual foundation of judicial review in India, and three doctrines operate under it:

Article 14 — the two limbs

The second limb is what makes the article workable. Absolute identity of treatment would make all legislation impossible, since every statute distinguishes between categories of person. What Article 14 forbids is not classification but arbitrary classification.

The twin test

A classification survives Article 14 if it satisfies both limbs:

• Intelligible differentia — the basis of distinction must be discernible and real, not notional
• Rational nexus — that differentia must bear a rational relationship to the object the law seeks to achieve

Articles 15–18

Article 19 — six freedoms

Originally seven. The right to acquire, hold and dispose of property was removed by the 44th Amendment, 1978, and now survives as a constitutional (not fundamental) right under Article 300A.

What makes a restriction ‘reasonable’

The adjective does substantial work. A restriction must bear a direct and proximate relationship to the ground relied on — a remote or conjectural connection will not do.

Articles 20 and 22 — protections of the accused

Article 23 — trafficking and forced labour

Prohibits traffic in human beings, begar, and other similar forms of forced labour. Unusually for Part III, it is enforceable against private persons as well as the State. The State may impose compulsory service for public purposes, provided it does not discriminate on grounds of religion, race, caste or class.

Article 24 — child labour

No child below fourteen may be employed in any factory, mine, or other hazardous employment. The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016 went further than the constitutional floor: it prohibits employment of children below fourteen in all occupations, with a narrow exception for non-hazardous help in a family enterprise outside school hours, and prohibits adolescents aged fourteen to eighteen from hazardous occupations.

Freedom of religion (Articles 25–28)

The essential religious practice test

Article 25 protects religious practice, but not everything done in the name of religion. The courts have developed a test to distinguish what is constitutionally protected from what the State may regulate.

The test is genuinely contested. Critics argue it puts courts in the position of adjudicating theology, a role for which they are institutionally unsuited; defenders argue that without some such line, any practice could claim constitutional immunity by asserting religious character. Both positions are worth understanding before taking one.

Cultural and educational rights (Articles 29–30)

Article 32 — the right that makes the others real

Article 32 guarantees the right to move the Supreme Court directly for enforcement of Fundamental Rights. It is itself a Fundamental Right, which is what distinguishes it from the High Courts' wider but non-fundamental writ jurisdiction under Article 226. Ambedkar called it “the heart and soul of the Constitution” — a right without a remedy being no right at all.

The five writs

Prohibition and certiorari are the pair most often confused. Both address jurisdictional error in an inferior tribunal; the difference is timing. Prohibition stops proceedings that are still running. Certiorari quashes a decision already delivered.

Articles 33–35 — the exceptions

Note that the power under Article 33 belongs to Parliament alone. A State legislature cannot restrict the Fundamental Rights of police forces within its own territory.

The Constitution is neither wholly rigid nor wholly flexible. Article 368 provides three routes, and which one applies depends on what is being amended.

The third route protects the federal structure: provisions that define the Union–State relationship cannot be altered by the Union acting alone.

Amendments worth knowing

The limit on the power itself: Kesavananda Bharati (1973) holds that Parliament may amend any part of the Constitution under Article 368 but may not damage or destroy its basic structure. Minerva Mills (1980) applied this to strike down clauses of the 42nd Amendment that had purported to place amendments beyond judicial review, holding that limited amending power and the balance between Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles are themselves part of the basic structure.