Constitutional Law

I.C. Golak Nath v. State of Punjab

AIR 1967 SC 1643

Citation: AIR 1967 SC 1643
Court: Supreme Court of India
Date: 27 February 1967
Bench: K. Subba Rao C.J.; K.N. Wanchoo; M. Hidayatullah; J.C. Shah; S.M. Sikri; R.S. Bachawat; V. Ramaswami; J.M. Shelat; V. Bhargava; G.K. Mitter; C.A. Vaidialingam

Facts

The Golak Nath family owned extensive agricultural land in Punjab.
The Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act imposed ceilings and treated part of the land as surplus.
The legislation had been placed in the Ninth Schedule through the Constitution (Seventeenth Amendment) Act, 1964.
Article 31B protected Ninth Schedule laws from fundamental-rights challenges.
The family argued that the Seventeenth Amendment violated their rights under Articles 14, 19 and 31.
The challenge also questioned the validity of the First and Fourth Amendments, which had similarly restricted property rights.
Earlier Supreme Court decisions had held that a constitutional amendment was not “law” under Article 13 and could therefore amend fundamental rights.
An eleven-judge Bench reconsidered those decisions.

Whether a constitutional amendment is “law” under Article 13(2).
Whether Parliament may amend or abridge fundamental rights.
Whether Article 368 itself grants substantive amending power or only prescribes procedure.
Whether earlier constitutional amendments should be invalidated retrospectively.

Majority
Article 13(2) prohibits the State from making any law taking away or abridging fundamental rights.
A constitutional amendment was treated as “law” for this purpose.
Article 368, as it then stood, was interpreted primarily as prescribing the procedure for amendment.
Parliament’s constituent power was traced to its ordinary legislative powers, which remained subject to Article 13.
Fundamental rights were regarded as transcendental constitutional freedoms placed beyond parliamentary abridgment.
The Court adopted prospective overruling, under which a new constitutional interpretation applies to future action while preserving earlier completed acts.

By a 6:5 majority, the Court rejected the earlier position that Parliament could freely amend fundamental rights.
If the word “law” in Article 13 excluded constitutional amendments, Parliament could remove every fundamental right and defeat the Constitution’s protection of individual liberty.
The majority considered fundamental rights central to the constitutional order and not merely ordinary statutory entitlements.
However, immediately invalidating all previous amendments would create serious uncertainty.
Land-reform legislation, property arrangements and numerous legal rights had developed in reliance upon those amendments.
The Court therefore used prospective overruling for the first time in Indian constitutional law.
The First, Fourth and Seventeenth Amendments were left undisturbed.
Parliament was nevertheless declared incapable, for the future, of amending Part III so as to take away or abridge fundamental rights.
The five dissenting judges held that Article 368 contained a distinct constituent power.
In their view, a constitutional amendment was not ordinary “law” under Article 13 because Parliament acts in a special constitutional capacity while amending the Constitution.
They warned that denying amendment could make the Constitution excessively rigid.

By a 6:5 majority, the Court held that Parliament could not amend fundamental rights.
Constitutional amendments were treated as law under Article 13(2).
The ruling operated prospectively.