“Constitutionally reconciling the Fundamental Rights with the Directive Principles of State Policy has led to frequent amendments of the· Constitution and judicial interventions.” Comment. (2021, 20 Marks)
Because Article 37 made the Directive Principles non-justiciable while Part III was enforceable under Article 32, every redistributive law had to survive a rights challenge. The contest between Parliament and the Court, fought over property and equality, produced a chain of amendments and judgments. The statement is accurate as history; the conflict has since been domesticated, though not closed.
Why Reconciliation Was Needed
- Part III was drafted in the liberal idiom: a right to property (Articles 19(1)(f) and 31) and formal equality (Articles 14–15). Part IV commanded redistribution: Articles 39(b) and (c), 46.
- Jawaharlal Nehru, piloting the First Amendment in 1951, argued that rights preserved existing arrangements while the directives pointed to change, and that Parliament must remove whatever in the Constitution blocked that change.
- Granville Austin (Working a Democratic Constitution, 1999) framed the clash as one between the democracy and social-revolution strands of a single “seamless web”.
The Amendment–Judgment Cycle
| Year | Judicial move / parliamentary response |
|---|---|
| 1951 | Champakam Dorairajan voided communal quotas; Patna High Court in Kameshwar Singh struck zamindari abolition → 1st Amendment: Art. 15(4), 31A, 31B, Ninth Schedule |
| 1954–55 | Bela Banerjee demanded full compensation → 4th Amendment: adequacy non-justiciable |
| 1962–64 | Karimbil Kunhikoman narrowed “estate” → 17th Amendment; upheld in Sajjan Singh (1965) |
| 1967–71 | Golaknath barred amending Part III; R. C. Cooper (1970) hit bank nationalisation → 24th and 25th: amending power restored, “amount” replaces compensation, Article 31C shields laws under 39(b)–(c) |
| 1973 | Kesavananda Bharati: basic structure; 31C upheld minus its bar on judicial review |
| 1976 | 42nd: 31C extended to all directives |
| 1978 | 44th: property removed from Part III to Article 300A |
| 1980 | Minerva Mills: 42nd’s extension struck; balance between Parts III and IV is basic structure |
| 1981, 2007 | Waman Rao, I. R. Coelho: Ninth Schedule laws after 24 April 1973 open to basic-structure review |
The Ninth Schedule, begun with 13 laws, grew to 284 entries, a measure of how often Parliament preferred immunity to argument.
From Confrontation to Harmony
- In Chandra Bhavan (1969) Justice K. S. Hegde found Parts III and IV complementary and supplementary to each other. Minerva Mills made this doctrine: Part IV’s goals must be reached without abrogating the means in Part III.
- After 1978 the directives entered through rights rather than against them: livelihood in Olga Tellis (1985), education in Unni Krishnan (1993), converted by the 86th Amendment (2002) into Article 21A, an amendment of convergence, not conflict.
- The equality front stays active: the 77th, 81st and 85th Amendments after Indra Sawhney (1992), and the 103rd (EWS), upheld in Janhit Abhiyan (2022), all rewrote Part III in the name of Article 46.
Is the Conflict Settled?
- Largely. Property is no longer a fundamental right, wholesale immunity under an extended 31C is barred, and harmonious construction is the default.
- Not wholly. In Property Owners Association v. State of Maharashtra (5 November 2024) a nine-judge bench held 8:1 that not every private resource is a “material resource of the community”, the majority rejecting V. R. Krishna Iyer‘s expansive reading, while confirming that the unamended 31C survives. Sudhanshu Dhulia J’s dissent shows the question has shifted from hierarchy to the scope of Part IV.
- Criticism cuts both ways: amendment-by-reflex made rights defeasible, while judicial intervention let judges choose an economic philosophy the Constitution left open.
Conclusion
The statement holds for 1951–1981, when reconciliation meant a cycle of override and review. Minerva Mills turned that cycle into a rule of balance, and later amendments mostly add to rights rather than shield laws from them. The friction now lies in interpretation, as 2024 showed, not in constitutional warfare.