Which words were inserted in the Preamble by the Forty-second Amendment (1976)?

Sovereign, democratic and republic

Which case overruled the approach of A.K. Gopalan and held that the procedure under Article 21 must be fair, just and reasonable?

Kharak Singh v State of Uttar Pradesh (1962)

Minerva Mills v Union of India (1980)

Assertion (A): After Kesavananda Bharati (1973), Parliament can amend the fundamental rights under Article 368. Reason (R): Kesavananda Bharati overruled Golaknath, subject to the doctrine of basic structure. Choose the correct option.

Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A

The right to property is now protected by which provision, and with what status?

Article 300A, as a constitutional right

Article 39(b), as a directive principle only

Article 31, as a fundamental right

Article 19(1)(f), as a fundamental right

Which of the following were held to be basic features, or part of the basic structure, in the cases named? Select all that apply.

Free and fair elections, in Indira Nehru Gandhi v Raj Narain (1975)

Limited amending power, in Minerva Mills (1980)

The right to property under Article 31, in I.R. Coelho (2007)

Absolute supremacy of directive principles, in Champakam Dorairajan (1951)

Free and fair elections, in Indira Nehru Gandhi v Raj Narain (1975)

Limited amending power, in Minerva Mills (1980)

The "intelligible differentia and rational nexus" test under Article 14 is most closely associated with:

Selvi v State of Karnataka (2010)

Assertion (A): Directive principles cannot be enforced by any court. Reason (R): The Supreme Court has held that directive principles are irrelevant to the interpretation of fundamental rights. Choose the correct option.

Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A

Which of the following were inserted by the Forty-second Amendment (1976)? Select all that apply.

Article 51A (fundamental duties)

Article 21A (right to education)

Article 51A (fundamental duties)

Constitutional Law I: The Preamble, Fundamental Rights and Duties, and the Directive Principles of State Policy

Unit II is "Constitutional and Administrative Law". Its first item is the Preamble, fundamental rights and duties, and the directive principles. This chapter treats them as law: the Articles, the tests the Supreme Court applies, and the ratio of the cases that built the doctrine, from Kesavananda Bharati (1973) and Maneka Gandhi (1978) to Minerva Mills (1980) and K.S. Puttaswamy (2017). A reader who has met these rights in a general polity course will find the emphasis different here: the question is always what test decides a case and which judgment laid it down. The next chapter takes the institutions (items 2 to 7), and the third chapter of the unit takes administrative law.

1. The Preamble and the basic structure

The Preamble declares India a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic and states the objectives of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity. "Socialist", "secular" and "integrity" were inserted by the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act 1976. In In re Berubari Union (1960) the Supreme Court said the Preamble is not part of the Constitution; in Kesavananda Bharati v State of Kerala (1973) the majority held that it is, and that it can be amended under Article 368, subject to the basic structure. In Dr. Balram Singh v Union of India (2024) the Court dismissed challenges to the 1976 insertion of "socialist" and "secular".

From Shankari Prasad to I.R. Coelho
Case	Holding on amendment of fundamental rights
Shankari Prasad (1951); Sajjan Singh (1965)	Parliament can amend any part, including fundamental rights; an amendment is not "law" under Article 13
I.C. Golaknath v State of Punjab (1967)	Eleven judges, 6:5: fundamental rights cannot be abridged by amendment (prospective overruling)
Kesavananda Bharati v State of Kerala (1973)	Thirteen judges, 7:6, decided 24 April 1973: Article 368 can amend any provision but not destroy the basic structure
Indira Nehru Gandhi v Raj Narain (1975)	Struck down clause (4) of Article 329A; free and fair elections and judicial review are basic features
Minerva Mills v Union of India (1980)	Struck down the Forty-second Amendment's grant of unlimited amending power and its subordination of all fundamental rights to all directive principles; limited amending power and the balance between Parts III and IV are basic features
I.R. Coelho v State of Tamil Nadu (2007)	Laws placed in the Ninth Schedule after 24 April 1973 are open to basic-structure review

⚠️ Kesavananda did not say fundamental rights are unamendable

Kesavananda overruled Golaknath. After it, Parliament can amend fundamental rights, provided it does not damage the basic structure. An option saying "Kesavananda held that fundamental rights cannot be amended" describes Golaknath, not Kesavananda.

2. Equality and the freedoms: Articles 12 to 19

Fundamental rights run against the "State" as defined in Article 12, which includes other authorities; after Ajay Hasia v Khalid Mujib (1981) and Pradeep Kumar Biswas v Indian Institute of Chemical Biology (2002) a body is an authority if it is financially, functionally and administratively dominated by or under the control of the government. Article 13 makes laws inconsistent with Part III void to the extent of inconsistency (the doctrines of severability and eclipse). Article 14 has two tests. The classification test (State of West Bengal v Anwar Ali Sarkar, 1952) requires an intelligible differentia with a rational nexus to the object of the law. The arbitrariness test (E.P. Royappa v State of Tamil Nadu, 1974; affirmed in Maneka Gandhi) holds that equality and arbitrariness are sworn enemies; Shayara Bano v Union of India (2017) applied "manifest arbitrariness" to legislation.

Articles 15 to 19 as tested
Article	Content	Leading authority
15 and 16	Non-discrimination and equality of opportunity; enabling clauses for backward classes, women, children and, since the 103rd Amendment (2019), economically weaker sections	Indra Sawhney (1992): 50 per cent ceiling, creamy layer; Janhit Abhiyan (2022): EWS quota upheld 3:2; State of Punjab v Davinder Singh (2024): sub-classification of Scheduled Castes permitted
17	Abolition of untouchability	Enforced by the Protection of Civil Rights Act 1955 and the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989
19(1)(a) to (g)	Six freedoms (property under 19(1)(f) was deleted in 1978), each subject to reasonable restrictions in clauses (2) to (6)	Shreya Singhal (2015): Section 66A of the IT Act struck down; Anuradha Bhasin (2020): internet restrictions must be proportionate

ℹ️ Property after 1978

The Forty-fourth Amendment (1978) deleted Article 19(1)(f) and Article 31. The right to property now lives in Article 300A ("no person shall be deprived of his property save by authority of law"): a constitutional right, not a fundamental one, so its breach cannot be taken directly to the Supreme Court under Article 32.

3. Life, liberty and the remaining rights: Articles 20 to 32

Article 21 grew from a narrow guarantee into the source of most unenumerated rights. A.K. Gopalan v State of Madras (1950) read "procedure established by law" literally and treated each Article as a self-contained code. Maneka Gandhi v Union of India (1978) overruled that approach: Articles 14, 19 and 21 form a "golden triangle", and the procedure must be fair, just and reasonable, not arbitrary, fanciful or oppressive, which brought substantive due process into Indian law in all but name. Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v Union of India (2017), decided by nine judges, held privacy to be a fundamental right protected by Article 21 and Part III as a whole, and expressly overruled ADM Jabalpur v Shivkant Shukla (1976), the Emergency-era case holding that a detainee could not approach a court while Article 21 was suspended.

Article 20: no ex post facto criminal law, no double jeopardy (prosecuted and punished), and no compulsion to be a witness against oneself; Selvi v State of Karnataka (2010) held involuntary narco-analysis, polygraph and brain-mapping tests to violate Article 20(3).
Article 21A (Eighty-sixth Amendment, 2002): free and compulsory education for children aged six to fourteen, implemented by the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009.
Article 22: safeguards on arrest (grounds, counsel, production before a magistrate within 24 hours) and the limits of preventive detention.
Articles 25 to 28: freedom of religion, subject to public order, morality and health; the "essential religious practices" test decides what is protected.
Articles 29 and 30: cultural and educational rights of minorities; T.M.A. Pai Foundation v State of Karnataka (2002) held that minority status is determined State-wise.
Article 32: the right to constitutional remedies, which Ambedkar called the "heart and soul" of the Constitution; the writs are habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibition, certiorari and quo warranto.

🎯 Why Maneka Gandhi is the turning point

Before 1978 any procedure a legislature enacted satisfied Article 21. After Maneka, the procedure itself is tested for fairness under Article 14 and, where freedoms are touched, for reasonableness under Article 19. That is why later rights to speedy trial, legal aid, livelihood, a clean environment and privacy could all be located in Article 21: the Article had become a guarantee of fair law, not merely of some law.

4. Directive principles and fundamental duties

Part IV (Articles 36 to 51) directs the State to apply its principles in making laws, but Article 37 makes them unenforceable by any court. The early view in State of Madras v Champakam Dorairajan (1951) was that directives must yield to fundamental rights. That view gave way to harmonious construction: Minerva Mills (1980) held that Parts III and IV together form the core of the Constitution and that neither may be sacrificed to the other. Directives now shape the content of rights: Unni Krishnan (1993) read the right to education into Article 21 using Article 45, and Article 39(b) and (c) have been used to test and uphold redistributive laws. In Property Owners Association v State of Maharashtra (2024) a nine-judge bench held that not every item of privately owned property is a "material resource of the community" under Article 39(b).

Directives and duties added or examined most often
Provision	Origin	Content
Article 39A	Forty-second Amendment, 1976	Equal justice and free legal aid
Article 43A	Forty-second Amendment, 1976	Participation of workers in management
Article 44	Original	Uniform civil code for citizens throughout the territory of India
Article 48A	Forty-second Amendment, 1976	Protection of environment, forests and wildlife
Article 50	Original	Separation of the judiciary from the executive
Article 51A	Forty-second Amendment, 1976, on the Swaran Singh Committee's recommendation; clause (k) added by the Eighty-sixth Amendment, 2002	Eleven fundamental duties of citizens, including (g) protecting the environment and (k) a parent's duty to provide opportunities for education to a child aged six to fourteen

🧠 Counting the duties

Ten duties came in 1976, the eleventh in 2002. Duties are not directly enforceable, but courts use them to read statutes and to judge the reasonableness of restrictions on rights, as in the environmental cases that cite Article 51A(g) together with Article 48A.

Key takeaways

Kesavananda Bharati (1973, 13 judges, 7:6) created the basic structure limit on Article 368 and held the Preamble part of the Constitution; Minerva Mills (1980) made limited amending power and the Part III–Part IV balance basic features.
Article 14 has two tests: reasonable classification (Anwar Ali Sarkar, 1952) and non-arbitrariness (Royappa, 1974), extended to legislation as manifest arbitrariness in Shayara Bano (2017).
Maneka Gandhi (1978) overruled Gopalan's approach: procedure under Article 21 must be fair, just and reasonable; Puttaswamy (2017, nine judges) recognised privacy and overruled ADM Jabalpur.
Property is a constitutional right under Article 300A since the Forty-fourth Amendment (1978), not a fundamental right.
Directives are unenforceable (Article 37) but shape rights by harmonious construction; Article 51A carries eleven fundamental duties, ten from 1976 and one from 2002.

Practice questions (10)

Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.

Which words were inserted in the Preamble by the Forty-second Amendment (1976)?
1. Fraternity, dignity and unity
2. Sovereign, democratic and republic
3. Justice, liberty and equality
4. Socialist, secular and integrity
Show answer
Answer: D — Socialist, secular and integrity
The 1976 amendment added "socialist" and "secular" to the description of the Republic and "integrity" after "unity of the Nation". Sovereign, democratic and republic, and the objectives of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity, were in the original text of 1949.
Which case overruled the approach of A.K. Gopalan and held that the procedure under Article 21 must be fair, just and reasonable?
1. Maneka Gandhi v Union of India (1978)
2. Kharak Singh v State of Uttar Pradesh (1962)
3. ADM Jabalpur v Shivkant Shukla (1976)
4. Minerva Mills v Union of India (1980)
Show answer
Answer: A — Maneka Gandhi v Union of India (1978)
Maneka Gandhi (1978) linked Articles 14, 19 and 21 and required a fair procedure. Kharak Singh concerned police surveillance, ADM Jabalpur denied habeas corpus during the Emergency, and Minerva Mills concerned the amending power.
Assertion (A): After Kesavananda Bharati (1973), Parliament can amend the fundamental rights under Article 368. Reason (R): Kesavananda Bharati overruled Golaknath, subject to the doctrine of basic structure. Choose the correct option.
1. Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
2. Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A
3. A is true, but R is false
4. A is false, but R is true
Show answer
Answer: A — Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
Both are true and R explains A. Golaknath (1967) had barred amendments abridging fundamental rights; Kesavananda overruled it, so fundamental rights can be amended, but no amendment may destroy the basic structure.
How many judges decided K.S. Puttaswamy v Union of India (2017), recognising privacy as a fundamental right?
1. Five
2. Thirteen
3. Seven
4. Nine
Show answer
Answer: D — Nine
A nine-judge bench was needed because M.P. Sharma (eight judges, 1954) and Kharak Singh (six judges, 1962) had been read as denying privacy as a fundamental right. Thirteen judges sat in Kesavananda.
The right to property is now protected by which provision, and with what status?
1. Article 300A, as a constitutional right
2. Article 39(b), as a directive principle only
3. Article 31, as a fundamental right
4. Article 19(1)(f), as a fundamental right
Show answer
Answer: A — Article 300A, as a constitutional right
The Forty-fourth Amendment (1978) deleted Articles 19(1)(f) and 31 and inserted Article 300A in Part XII. Deprivation of property therefore needs the authority of law, but the right is not enforceable under Article 32.
Which of the following were held to be basic features, or part of the basic structure, in the cases named? Select all that apply.
1. The right to property under Article 31, in I.R. Coelho (2007)
2. Absolute supremacy of directive principles, in Champakam Dorairajan (1951)
3. Free and fair elections, in Indira Nehru Gandhi v Raj Narain (1975)
4. Limited amending power, in Minerva Mills (1980)
Show answer
Answer: C — Free and fair elections, in Indira Nehru Gandhi v Raj Narain (1975); D — Limited amending power, in Minerva Mills (1980)
Raj Narain treated free and fair elections as basic, and Minerva Mills treated limited amending power as basic. Coelho concerned Ninth Schedule laws and did not make property basic; Champakam held the opposite of directive supremacy.
The "intelligible differentia and rational nexus" test under Article 14 is most closely associated with:
1. Ajay Hasia v Khalid Mujib (1981)
2. Selvi v State of Karnataka (2010)
3. State of West Bengal v Anwar Ali Sarkar (1952)
4. E.P. Royappa v State of Tamil Nadu (1974)
Show answer
Answer: C — State of West Bengal v Anwar Ali Sarkar (1952)
Anwar Ali Sarkar applied the classification test: a law may classify if the differentia is intelligible and bears a rational relation to the object. Royappa introduced the non-arbitrariness test, Ajay Hasia defined "other authorities", and Selvi concerned Article 20(3).
Assertion (A): Directive principles cannot be enforced by any court. Reason (R): The Supreme Court has held that directive principles are irrelevant to the interpretation of fundamental rights. Choose the correct option.
1. Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
2. Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A
3. A is true, but R is false
4. A is false, but R is true
Show answer
Answer: C — A is true, but R is false
A is true under Article 37. R is false: since Minerva Mills the Court reads Parts III and IV together, and directives such as Article 45 (in Unni Krishnan) and Articles 39(b) and (c) inform the content of rights.
Which of the following were inserted by the Forty-second Amendment (1976)? Select all that apply.
1. Article 21A (right to education)
2. Article 39A (free legal aid)
3. Article 51A (fundamental duties)
4. Article 48A (environment)
Show answer
Answer: B — Article 39A (free legal aid); C — Article 51A (fundamental duties); D — Article 48A (environment)
Articles 39A, 48A and 51A all came in 1976. Article 21A was inserted by the Eighty-sixth Amendment in 2002, which also added the eleventh duty, Article 51A(k).
Kesavananda Bharati v State of Kerala was decided by a bench of how many judges? Type the number.
Numerical answer — type the value.
Show answer
Answer: 13
Thirteen judges sat, the largest bench in the Court's history, and the basic structure doctrine carried by 7:6 on 24 April 1973.