| L.C. Golak Nath and Ors. vs. State of Punjab and Anr. | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Supreme Court of India | ||||||||||
| Decided February 27, 1967, 1967 |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
| Holding | ||||||||||
| Parliament could not curtail any of the Fundamental Rights in the Constitution. | ||||||||||
| Case opinions | ||||||||||
| Majority by: Koka Subba Rao, C.J. |
||||||||||
| Laws applied | ||||||||||
| Constitution of India:Articles 13(2), 14, 19, 31(1), (2), 2A and 31A(1), 32, 245, 246, 248 and 368 | ||||||||||
| Overruled by | ||||||||||
| Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala | ||||||||||
In the famous case of Golaknath V. State Of Punjab, in the year 1967 the Court ruled that Parliament could not curtail any of the Fundamental Rights in the Constitution.[1]
Contents |
It was in the case of Golaknath v. State of Punjab , that the then Chief Justice Koka Subba Rao had first invoked the doctrine of prospective overruling. He had taken import from American Law where Jurists like George F. Canfield, Robert Hill Freeman, John Henry Wigmore and Cardozo had considered this doctrine to be an effective judicial tool. In the words of Canfield, the said expression means:
"........ a court should recognize a duty to announce a new and better rule for future transactions whenever the court has reached the conviction that an old rule (as established by the precedents) is unsound even though feeling compelled by stare decisis to apply the old and condemned rule to the instant case and to transactions which had already taken place".
Taking cue from such formulation, Justice Subba Rao used this doctrine to preserve the constitutional validity of the Constitution (Seventeenth Amendment) Act, legality of which had been challenged. He drew protective cover offered by the doctrine over the impugned amendments while manifestly holding that the impugned amendments abridged the scope of fundamental rights. Justifying his stand, he held that:
What then is the effect of our conclusion on the instant case? Having regard to the history of the amendments, their impact on the social and economic affairs of our country and the chaotic situation that may be brought about by the sudden withdrawal at this stage of the amendments from the Constitution, we think that considerable judicial restraint is called for. We, therefore, declare that our decisions will not affect the validity of the constitution (Seventeenth Amendment) Act, 1964, or other amendments made to the Constitution taking away or abridging the fundamental rights. We further declare that in future Parliament will have no power to amend Part III of the Constitution so as to take away or abridge the fundamental rights.[2]
The judges who delivered the minority judgment in the Golaknath case dissented with the view of the invocation of the doctrine of prospective overruling. They seemed to rest their argument on the traditional Balckstonian theory where they said that courts declare law and a declaration being the law of the land takes effect from the date the law comes into force. This is a very restricted way of looking at it. They further said that it would be loathsome to change the above principle and supersede it by the doctrine of prospective overruling. It is submitted here that the doctrine of prospective overruling in anyway does not supersede the already existing doctrine but simply tries to enrich the existing and rather complex practice with regard to the effects of new judicial decisions, by the adoption of an alternative discretionary device to be employed in appropriate cases. So, the basic characteristics of the above doctrine are the flexibility of content and fitfulness of occurrence.
The Supreme Court of India in the landmark case of Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala held that the Parliament under the Indian Constitution is not supreme, in that it cannot change the basic structure of the constitution. It also declared that in certain circumstances, the amendment of fundamental rights would affect the basic structure and therefore, would be void. Thus, one can see that this case is drawn on a larger canvass as compared to that of Golaknath. It also overruled Golaknath and thus, all the previous amendments which were held valid are now open to be reviewed. They can also be sustained on the ground that they do not affect the basic structure of the constitution or on the fact that they are reasonable restrictions on the fundamental rights in public interest. Both the cases, is seen closely, bear the same practical effects. What Golaknath said was that the Parliament cannot amend so as to take away the fundamental rights enshrined in Part III, whereas in Keshavananda, it was held that it cannot amend so as to affect the basic structure.