one sec, the case which we will discuss about, firstly we should know the

importance of the case.

Lights please!

So when ever a student enters law college, his/her teachers and seniors

definitely tells about Kesavananda Bharati Case to them, and say have you ever
listened about this case

which is the longest case in India.

The proceedings of this case ran till 68 days and over 100 cases were sidelined
for this case

and to understand what is right and what is wrong

the constitution of more than 70 countries were compared.

the judgement of this case is 703 pages long, and the most important thing is that

it is (Kesavananda Bharati Case vs the state of Kerala) one of the important case
of our Indian constitution

and we will discuss about this case in today's video

Hey everybody! This is Priya and you are watching Finology Legal, so lets start
today's video

So lets understand the background of this case

After the independence every state was rebuilding their social and economic
conditions

and after the formation of the constitution, when citizens get their fundamental
rights

they realize that equality is their right

At that time the system was like that where the resources and means of production

was up to certain people only

and slowly they realized that the concentration of wealth is not at all right.

and to change this all the states were up to make a change in their existing laws
and system.

and so the state government of Kerala also did the same

for rebuilding the social and economic condition of their state

like Zamindari system, land ownership, Tenancy laws for rebuilding this

they passed Kerala Land reforms Act 1963

now this land reforms act put a restriction over that how much land anyone can own

basically it restricted the property rights of the citizens

so by using this act the Kerala government acquires the land of Edneer Mutt of
Kasaragod district

after this takeover by the government the income of the mutt totally gets effected

and they were facing problems to manage the daily works of the mutt

so this land acquisition was challenged by the head of the Edneer mutt

The head of the Edneer mutt was Kesavananda Bharati

and this case was represented in the Supreme Court by Nana Bhai Phalkivala

This Land reform Act imposed restrictions on the citizens of their right to
property

that's why on March 1970, Kesavananda Bharati opposed and challenged this act

and filed a writ petition in supreme court

and said that this land reform act violates his fundamental right such as Art.14,
Art 19 (f) Art.25 and Art.26

his saying was that to own a land and to manage it, is a fundamental right of a
citizen

and these fundamental rights should get protected.

On that time many cases like this were running in supreme court

such as Bank Nationalization Case, Madhav Rao Scindia Case, Golaknath Case etc etc.

In all these case you will clearly see that, India's two most strongest parties was
struggling with powers

and these parties was Parliament and the supreme court

on the one hand Parliament's saying was that through Art.368 they have the power

to amend the constitution according to their will and they have unlimited powers.

But Supreme court didn't agreed with the statement of the Parliament.

The case of Golaknath vs. State of Punjab in which Supreme court's 11 judges bench
was constituted

and when they faced this question that if parliament has such huge powers

to amend constitution and can change fundamental rights according to their will

then this question was answered in this case by supreme court

and they imposed many restrictions on the powers of Parliament for amending the
constitution

after that parliament introduced 24th, 25th and 29th Amendment act to remove
restrictions from them
and they can regain their powers

So lets now understand about these 3 amendments also

the 24th Amendment act gives Parliament the power to amend the fundamental rights

and it says Parliament has power to amend any prov. of Constitution

The 25th Amendment act said that Right to property can be curtailed

their could be restrictions on right to property

and government can acquire private property for public use

and compensation for this would be decided by the Parliament and not by the court

Next is 29th Amendment Act, this Amendment put Land Reforms Act under 9th Schedule

what is special about 9th Schedule?

the laws that goes under 9th Schedule can not be questioned.

that laws cannot be reviewed on the court

So after been put under the 9th Schedule the Land Reforms Act got immunity from get
questioned

So along with Land Reforms Act those 3 Constitutional Amendments were also
challenged in kesavananda Bharati case

So basically in this case many questions were raised

but the main question of this case was that - Can Parliament amend the Fundamental
Rights ?

and secondly if the answer of the 1st question is "Yes"

then what will be the extent of the powers that Parliament has

and which provisions of the Constitution Parliament can amend.

These were 2 main questions of this case

Let's discuss the arguments of this case one by one from both petitioners and
respondent sides

firstly we will discuss the arguments from the petitioner side

So the first point of the Petitioner was that, the Art.368 of the Constitution

which gives Parliament the power to amend is not an absolute power, infact this
power is limited

so Parliament cannot change the provisions according to their will

because this power is limited and restrictive.

their 2nd point was that, the rights given in the Constitution is to protect the
freedom of the citizen
like Art.19 (1) (f) which says about Right to Property

but the Petitioner sayings was that the 24th and 25th Amendment act

which was inserted from Art.31 imposes restriction on Fundamental Rights of the
citizen it curtails that.

Which is a wrong act.

The Respondents sayings was that Parliament has unlimited & absolute powers to
amend the Constitution

According to them every state has to better its social and economic conditions

so in such situation no restriction should be imposed on Parliament's power

because if their power gets restricted

then they will never be able to fulfill the requirements of the society from time
to time.

As per Respondents, Parliament has powers to put restrictions on some Fundamental

Rights

such as Freedom of Speech & Expression, Right to form Association, Freedom of

Religion

Do you know that in this case

till now the largest bench of 13 judges of Supreme court was constituted in this
case

So lets also look at the judgements of this case

so the judgement of this case came out with the majority ratio of 7:6

where in the previous case of Golaknath vs. State of Punjab it has been said that

Parliament cannot amend the Fundamental Rights

this judgement was stated wrong and it got Overruled

and along with that the 24th amendment act which was challenged

in which the act says that Parliament can amend any provision of the Constitution

it was stated valid.

and Supreme court also said that under Art.368

Parliament has the absolute power to amend any provision of the Constitution

but all this is the answer of the 1st question

Now we will look after the 2nd question

the questions asks, The Parliament has powers to what extent?

So Supreme court answered this question perfectly and said

Although Parliament has the power to amend any provision of the Constitution

but they can use their amending powers to only that extent

where they cannot interfere with basic and essential features

and this called as Basic Structure Doctrine

For more knowledge on Basic Structure you can also refer to this detailed video of
mine

where I have explained this concept very clearly

and along with this 25th and 29th Amendment act were also declared valid in this
case

and also said that if there is any law which has been put under Schedule 9

but if they violates basic features of the Constitution

then that laws can be judicially reviewed and challenged in the court

So on 24th April 1973 this landmark judgment introduced Basic Structure Doctrine

any Exhaustive list was not given in this case

that these some features should only be the basic elements

but an Indicative list was given that these features will qualify for the basic
elements

and also said that in future many other features could be add up in this list

but any element is an essential element and any feature is a basic feature or not

will be decided by the court on case by case basis.

This case is so important because in this case Supreme court used its creativity

and introduced a new doctrine "Basic Structure of Doctrine"

through this on one hand they gave unlimited and absolute powers to the Parliament

but on other hand they said Parliament cannot interfere with basic features also

this one case safe guarded India's democracy for the upcoming years

So this was today's video on between Kesavananda Bharati Vs. State of Kerala

I hope you have learned something new and important today through this video

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That's it for now, see you in the next class. Bye Bye!