Constitutional Jurisprudence Built through Judicial Activism

In one line

Almost every doctrine an Indian constitutional law student learns was made by a court, and knowing which case made which is the whole of this question.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: constitutional jurisprudence means the body of doctrine by which the constitutional text is understood and applied. In India, that body has been built almost entirely by judicial decision rather than by amendment, and its principal doctrines are the basic structure, the golden triangle of Articles 14, 19 and 21, the arbitrariness doctrine, the expanded content of Article 21, the State in Article 12, public interest litigation, public law compensation, and constitutional morality.

Doctrine by doctrine, with the case that made it

1. The basic structure. Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala, AIR 1973 SC 1461, holding that Parliament's power to amend under Article 368 does not extend to damaging or destroying the basic structure. Applied in Indira Nehru Gandhi v. Raj Narain, AIR 1975 SC 2299; Minerva Mills Ltd. v. Union of India, AIR 1980 SC 1789; L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India, AIR 1997 SC 1125; I.R. Coelho v. State of Tamil Nadu, decided on 11 January 2007; and the NJAC decision of 16 October 2015. Not in the text.

2. The golden triangle. Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India, AIR 1978 SC 597, holding that Articles 14, 19 and 21 form a single scheme, so a law depriving a person of personal liberty must satisfy all three and the procedure must be right, just and fair. It reversed the compartments of A.K. Gopalan v. State of Madras, AIR 1950 SC 27, on an unchanged text.

3. Arbitrariness. E.P. Royappa v. State of Tamil Nadu, AIR 1974 SC 555.

Facts. A senior member of the Indian Administrative Service, appointed Chief Secretary of Tamil Nadu, was moved to posts he said were inferior, alleging mala fides because he had displeased the Chief Minister, and complaining under Articles 14 and 16.

Held. The petition failed on the facts. In reasoning, equality is a dynamic concept which cannot be cribbed, cabined and confined within traditional and doctrinaire limits; from a positivistic point of view equality is antithetic to arbitrariness; equality and arbitrariness are sworn enemies, so that an arbitrary act is implicitly unequal and violates Article 14.

Why it matters here. A doctrine that governs Indian public law was made in a petition that failed, in reasoning strictly unnecessary to the decision, and is now applied to strike down statutes and practices, as the majority did in Shayara Bano v. Union of India, AIR 2017 SC 4609.

4. The expanded content of Article 21. Dignity and the bare necessaries in Francis Coralie Mullin v. Administrator, Union Territory of Delhi, AIR 1981 SC 746; speedy trial and legal aid in Hussainara Khatoon v. Home Secretary, State of Bihar, AIR 1979 SC 1360; livelihood in Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation, AIR 1986 SC 180; pollution free water and air in Subhash Kumar v. State of Bihar, AIR 1991 SC 420; education in Unni Krishnan, J.P. v. State of Andhra Pradesh, AIR 1993 SC 2178; privacy in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, (2017) 10 SCC 1.