The Interrelationship of Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles

Phase four: complementarity, and the balance as a basic feature

The settled position has three propositions.

The two Parts are complementary and supplementary to each other, together constituting the conscience of the Constitution. Fundamental rights are the means; directive principles are the ends.

Neither has absolute primacy. A law cannot be immunised from Part III merely because it serves Part IV, and a directive cannot be dismissed merely because it is unenforceable.

And the balance between them is part of the basic structure, so an amendment that destroys it is invalid.

What the doctrine produced in practice

Three concrete results, and they are the evidence an answer needs.

Part IV content entered Part III. Livelihood, shelter, health, food, legal aid and a clean environment are enforceable under article 21 because the directives supplied their content. [The Contribution of the Directive Principles to Human Rights] has the table.

Parliament confirmed the movement by amendment. Education travelled from article 45 to article 21A. [Article 21A: Education as a Fundamental Right] is the complete journey.

And Part IV legislation is defended rather than struck down. Articles 31A, 31B and 31C exist, and beyond them a restriction serving a directive is more readily upheld as reasonable.

The honest qualification

The complementarity doctrine is a judicial construction, not a text.

Article 37 still says the directives are not enforceable by any court, and nothing has changed those words. What changed is what courts do with unenforceable provisions.

And the movement has been one way. Directive content has entered article 21; no fundamental right has been demoted to Part IV. An answer that presents the relationship as a genuine balance should note that the traffic runs in one direction.

The international parallel

The two Covenants of 1966 made the same split India had made in 1950, one instrument for civil and political rights with an immediate obligation, another for economic, social and cultural rights with progressive realisation.

And the international position has moved the same way. The Vienna Declaration of 1993 affirmed that all human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated, which is the international statement of exactly the complementarity doctrine Indian courts reached.

That parallel is worth drawing, because it shows the Indian development is not an eccentricity but the same correction the international system made.

Worked example

Her Set 2 Q7(a), the interrelationship between fundamental rights and directive principles.

Say why there is a problem: same State, both constitutional, capable of conflict.

Give the four phases in order, with what each held.

Give article 31C and what happened to its widened version, because that is the sharpest moment in the story.

Give the three settled propositions.

Give the three practical results.

Then give the honest qualification: article 37 is unchanged, and the traffic runs one way.

Close on the Vienna Declaration parallel.

What it does NOT mean

It does not mean the directives are now enforceable. Article 37 stands.

It does not mean article 31C is gone. The narrow version, confined to article 39(b) and (c), survives.

And it does not mean Part IV can override a fundamental right. The attempt to make it do so was struck down.

Quick revision

• The problem: article 36 gives the State the same meaning in both Parts, both are constitutional commitments, and they conflict.
• Phase one: Part III prevails; directives subsidiary; land reform struck down; articles 31A, 31B and the Ninth Schedule were the answer.
• Phase two: harmonious construction; a directive resolves ambiguity, makes a restriction more readily reasonable, and supplies a legitimate object under article 14.
• Phase three: article 31C widened by the Forty-second Amendment to cover any directive and to bar the court from asking whether the law gave effect to it. The widened version was struck down; the narrow one, article 39(b) and (c), survives.
• Phase four: complementary and supplementary; neither has absolute primacy; and the balance is part of the basic structure.
• Three results: directive content entered article 21; Parliament confirmed it with article 21A; and Part IV legislation is defended.
• Honest qualification: article 37 is unchanged, and the traffic runs one way.
• Parallel: the two Covenants of 1966 made the same split; the Vienna Declaration 1993 called all rights universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated.

Test yourself

1. Why can Parts III and IV conflict, and how did the courts first resolve it? They conflict because article 36 gives the word State the same meaning in Part IV as in Part III, so both Parts are addressed to the same authorities; because both express constitutional commitments, one enforceable and one declared fundamental in the governance of the country; and because their contents genuinely pull against one another. A law redistributing property advances article 39(b) and restricts article 19 or article 14. A law reserving posts advances article 46 and engages article 16. The conflict is not academic: it was most of Indian constitutional litigation for the first three decades.

The first resolution was that Part III prevails. The reasoning was straightforward: Part III is enforceable and Part IV is not, article 37 says so in terms, and a directive therefore cannot displace a right. The directives were treated as subsidiary, to be conformed to and to run as subsidiary to the fundamental rights. The consequence was that land reform and other redistributive legislation was repeatedly struck down, which is why Parliament responded with article 31A saving estate acquisition laws, article 31B validating the enactments in the Ninth Schedule, and eventually article 31C.

2. What happened to article 31C, and why does it matter? Article 31C was inserted to save a law giving effect to the directives in article 39(b) and (c), on the distribution of material resources to subserve the common good and on preventing the concentration of wealth, from challenge under articles 14 and 19. The Forty-second Amendment then widened it in two ways: it extended the protection to a law giving effect to any directive principle whatever, and it added a provision that no such law should be called in question in any court on the ground that it did not in fact give effect to the directive.

The widened version was struck down. The reasoning was that to give Part IV blanket primacy over Part III would destroy the balance between the two Parts, and that the balance is itself a basic feature of the Constitution which no amendment may damage. The narrower article 31C, confined to article 39(b) and (c), survives. It matters because it is the sharpest moment in the whole relationship: it is the point at which Parliament attempted to reverse the priority by amendment and was told that the priority could not be reversed either way, because the constitutional commitment is to the balance rather than to the supremacy of either Part.

3. State the settled position, and give the honest qualification. The settled position has three propositions. The two Parts are complementary and supplementary to each other and together constitute the conscience of the Constitution, the fundamental rights being the means and the directive principles the ends. Neither has absolute primacy: a law cannot be immunised from Part III merely because it serves Part IV, and a directive cannot be dismissed merely because article 37 makes it unenforceable. And the balance between them is part of the basic structure, so an amendment that destroys it is invalid. In practice this has produced three results: directive content entered Part III through article 21, giving enforceable rights to livelihood, shelter, health, food, legal aid and a clean environment; Parliament confirmed the movement by amendment when it enacted article 21A; and Part IV legislation is defended rather than struck down, both by articles 31A, 31B and 31C and by the general readiness to hold a restriction serving a directive reasonable.

The honest qualification has two parts. First, the complementarity doctrine is a judicial construction and not a text: article 37 still provides in terms that the provisions of Part IV shall not be enforceable by any court, and nothing has altered those words. What changed is what courts are prepared to do with an unenforceable provision, not the provision itself. Second, the traffic has run in one direction only. Directive content has been read into article 21 repeatedly; no fundamental right has ever been demoted to Part IV. So describing the relationship as a balance is accurate as a statement of doctrine and slightly generous as a description of what has actually happened. The international parallel is worth adding: the two Covenants of 1966 made the same split India had made in 1950, and the Vienna Declaration of 1993 affirmed that all human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated, which is the same correction arrived at internationally.