LLM Foundation Course Indian Constitutional Law New Challenges 2024-25 Question Paper with Solutions

For full marks, cover: the text and why it is inclusive; then, since the question asks how the judiciary shaped the scope, take the judgments in order and say what each one added, rather than listing them; and close on the two doctrines that now do the work the definition cannot, public function under Article 226 and horizontality after Kaushal Kishor.

The text first. Article 12 provides that in Part III, unless the context otherwise requires, "the State" includes the Government and Parliament of India, the Government and the Legislature of each of the States, all local authorities, and other authorities within the territory of India or under the control of the Government of India. Two features of the drafting decide everything that follows. It says "includes", not "means", so it is a floor and not a ceiling. And it is a definition for Part III only, and for Article 36 in Part IV by express extension, so a body may be State for the purpose of a fundamental right and not for any other purpose.

3. Sukhdev Singh v. Bhagatram (1975) 1 SCC 421 added the idea of instrumentality. ONGC, LIC and the Industrial Finance Corporation were held to be State because their regulations had statutory force. Mathew J., concurring, supplied the theory: a public corporation is an agency or instrumentality of the State, and the State cannot escape its constitutional obligations by choosing a corporate form.

4. Ramana Dayaram Shetty v. International Airport Authority of India (1979) 3 SCC 489 added workable tests. Bhagwati J. listed the indicia of instrumentality: entire share capital held by government; deep and pervasive State control; financial assistance meeting almost the whole expenditure; a State-conferred or State-protected monopoly; functions of public importance closely related to governmental functions; and a department of government transferred to the body. The case also gave the parallel rule that the State cannot act arbitrarily in awarding contracts, which is the administrative law half of its significance.

7. Zee Telefilms Ltd. v. Union of India (2005) 4 SCC 649 added the boundary. The Board of Control for Cricket in India, though it enjoys a monopoly in fact and selects the national team, is not State: not created by statute, no share capital held by government, no financial assistance, no monopoly conferred by the State, no pervasive control. But the majority preserved the citizen's remedy by holding that where the Board discharges public duties a writ under Article 226 lies. Federal Bank Ltd. v. Sagar Thomas (2003) 10 SCC 733 is to the same effect for a private bank subject to Reserve Bank regulation.

8. Kaushal Kishor v. State of Uttar Pradesh (2023) 4 SCC 1 added a way round the definition altogether. By 4:1 the Court held that the rights under Articles 19 and 21 can be enforced against non-State actors, alongside Articles 15(2), 17, 20(2), 23, 24 and 29(2), which are horizontal on their own terms, and that the State has a positive duty to protect a person's Article 21 rights even against private threats. If that holding is developed, the question whether a body is State ceases to be decisive for two of the most important rights in Part III.

Assess the shaping, because the question asks about it. The direction of travel until 2002 was one way: each judgment brought within Article 12 a class of body the previous one had left out, moving the test from sovereign function to statutory creation to instrumentality to pervasive control. Zee Telefilms stopped it, and correctly, because a definition that catches every powerful private body would be no definition. The result is a settled but static rule at a time when the State's own footprint is shrinking through disinvestment, so that the field to which Article 12 applies narrows even as the definition stands still. BALCO Employees' Union v. Union of India (2002) 2 SCC 333, which upheld disinvestment as a policy decision not ordinarily justiciable, is the honest illustration: employees with constitutional protection on one day had none the next. The judiciary's answer has not been to stretch Article 12 further but to build two alternatives beside it, the public duty jurisdiction of Andi Mukta Sadguru Trust v. V.R. Rudani (1989) 2 SCC 691 and the horizontality of Kaushal Kishor.

For full marks, cover: the text of 19(1)(a) and 19(2); the derived rights that make up the "extent"; then the restriction half in a structured way, which means the eight grounds, the meaning of "reasonable", the proportionality test after Puttaswamy and Anuradha Bhasin, and the vagueness and overbreadth doctrine from Shreya Singhal.

Three structural points about Article 19(2) that must be made early. First, the list is exhaustive: in Kaushal Kishor v. State of Uttar Pradesh (2023) 4 SCC 1 the Court held that no additional ground of restriction can be read in, not even to control the speech of a Minister. Second, the restriction must be imposed by a law, so an executive instruction or an informal request to a platform cannot restrict speech. Third, the connection with the ground must be proximate and not remote: in Superintendent, Central Prison, Fatehgarh v. Ram Manohar Lohia (AIR 1960 SC 633) the Court struck down a provision because the link between the speech and public order was far-fetched, holding that there must be a proximate and reasonable nexus.

The extent of the right: what the Court has read into it.

• Freedom of the press, which has no separate mention: Sakal Papers (P) Ltd. v. Union of India (AIR 1962 SC 305), Bennett Coleman & Co. v. Union of India (1972) 2 SCC 788, holding that a restriction on the volume of newsprint is a restriction on speech, and Indian Express Newspapers v. Union of India (1985) 1 SCC 641.

• Speech through the internet, Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India (2020) 3 SCC 637.
• And, at the boundary, the right to strike is not within Article 19(1)(a) or (c): All India Bank Employees' Association v. National Industrial Tribunal (AIR 1962 SC 171) and T.K. Rangarajan v. Government of Tamil Nadu (2003) 6 SCC 581.

How the Court tests a restriction. This is the analytical core and it has three tools.

One, reasonableness. Chintaman Rao v. State of Madhya Pradesh (AIR 1951 SC 118) supplied the classic statement: the limitation must not be arbitrary or of an excessive nature, and legislation which arbitrarily or excessively invades the right cannot be said to contain the quality of reasonableness. State of Madras v. V.G. Row (AIR 1952 SC 196) added the factors to weigh, the nature of the right, the purpose of the restriction, the extent and urgency of the evil, and the prevailing conditions, and warned against any abstract standard.

Where the Court has upheld restrictions, because an unbalanced answer is a weak one. Contempt jurisdiction under Articles 129 and 215 was upheld against a truth defence limitation in Re: Arundhati Roy (2002) 3 SCC 343, though section 13 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 was amended in 2006 to admit truth as a defence in the public interest. Obscenity was governed by the Hicklin test until Aveek Sarkar v. State of West Bengal (2014) 4 SCC 257 replaced it with the community standards test. Pre-censorship of films was upheld in K.A. Abbas v. Union of India (1970) 2 SCC 780 on the ground that the motion picture's appeal to emotion justifies a classification regime. And the criminal law of defamation in sections 499 and 500 of the Penal Code was upheld in Subramanian Swamy v. Union of India (2016) 7 SCC 221, on the reasoning that reputation is protected by Article 21 and the two rights must be balanced, a decision heavily criticised.

Conclusion. The scope of Article 19(1)(a) is wide because the Court has consistently read the right by reference to its purpose rather than its medium, so that newsprint quotas, broadcasting monopolies, telephone taps and internet shutdowns have each in turn been brought within it. The extent of the restrictions is narrow, at least on paper, because Article 19(2) is exhaustive, requires a law, requires proximity, and is now policed by a proportionality test that asks whether a less restrictive measure was available. The gap between the two is procedural rather than doctrinal: section 66A continued to be used for six years after it was struck down, and blocking orders under section 69A are still not routinely published to the person whose speech is blocked. The Supreme Court has defined the right generously and the restrictions strictly; what remains unsolved is making the second definition bite in practice.

Definition and source. Judicial activism is the exercise of judicial power to give effect to constitutional values in areas the other organs have left unaddressed, going beyond the strictly adjudicative task of deciding a lis between parties. It is not a doctrine imported from elsewhere; it grows out of four provisions of the Indian Constitution. Article 32 makes the right to move the Supreme Court for enforcement of fundamental rights itself a fundamental right and empowers the Court to issue directions, orders or writs "whichever may be appropriate", words wider than the English prerogative writs. Article 226 gives the High Courts a still wider power, extending to "any other purpose". Article 142 empowers the Supreme Court to pass any decree or order necessary for doing complete justice. And Article 141 makes its law binding on all courts.

Through Article 21 alone it has produced the right to a speedy trial (Hussainara Khatoon), legal aid (M.H. Hoskot v. State of Maharashtra (1978) 3 SCC 544), livelihood (Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation (1985) 3 SCC 545), a healthy environment (Subhash Kumar v. State of Bihar (1991) 1 SCC 598, M.C. Mehta line), health (Consumer Education and Research Centre v. Union of India (1995) 3 SCC 42), education (Unni Krishnan), privacy (Puttaswamy, 2017), and protection against custodial violence (D.K. Basu v. State of West Bengal (1997) 1 SCC 416). It has supplied law where Parliament had not: the guidelines in Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan (1997) 6 SCC 241 governed workplace sexual harassment for sixteen years until the Act of 2013, and the Court expressly grounded them in Article 51(c) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. It has enforced accountability in Vineet Narain, and it has protected the Constitution itself in Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala (1973) 4 SCC 225 and Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association v. Union of India (2016) 5 SCC 1.

Now the distinction, which is the heart of the question. State it as a test, not as a mood.

Examples generally accepted as legitimate activism. Vishaka, because Articles 14, 15, 19(1)(g) and 21 were engaged, there was a legislative vacuum, and the Court said in terms that the guidelines would hold only until Parliament legislated. Vineet Narain, because the right to an impartial investigation was engaged and the directions were institutional rather than substantive. Hussainara Khatoon, because the right to a speedy trial is an Article 21 right and the remedy was release.

The counter-argument must be made too. The reason the Court acts is that the other organs do not. The guidelines in Vishaka were required because Parliament had not legislated in fifty years; the tribunals directions became necessary because Parliament re-enacted provisions already struck down, most recently in Madras Bar Association v. Union of India, decided 19 November 2025, which struck down the core of the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021 and directed a National Tribunals Commission; and the disclosure of candidates' criminal antecedents came only because section 33B of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, enacted to defeat Union of India v. Association for Democratic Reforms (2002) 5 SCC 294, was struck down in PUCL v. Union of India (2003) 4 SCC 399. Activism in India is largely a function of legislative and executive default, and it recedes where the other organs act.

Conclusion. Judicial activism in India is not an aberration but a consequence of a Constitution that made the right to a constitutional remedy itself a fundamental right and gave the Court a power to do complete justice, applied in a system where the enforcement machinery is weak and legislative attention is intermittent. It has produced a large part of the modern content of Article 21 and, in Vishaka and Vineet Narain, whole regimes of law. The line beyond which it becomes overreach is not a matter of degree but of function: a court enforcing a right the Constitution confers is doing its work however far-reaching the order, and a court choosing between policies that the Constitution left to elected bodies is doing someone else's, however good the policy. The strongest safeguard is not a doctrine but a discipline the Court has articulated for itself in Aravali Golf Club, that judicial restraint is a component of judicial independence, because a judiciary that governs will eventually be governed.

Article 15(1) forbids the State to discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them. Article 15(2) forbids any restriction on that ground in access to shops, public restaurants, hotels, places of public entertainment, wells, tanks, bathing ghats, roads and places of public resort, and binds private persons as well as the State. Article 15(3) permits the State to make any special provision for women and children, and is the enabling clause for a great deal of protective legislation. Clauses (4), (5) and (6) enable provision for backward classes, for admission to educational institutions and for economically weaker sections.

Article 16(1) guarantees equality of opportunity in matters of public employment; 16(2) forbids discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, descent, place of birth, residence or any of them; and clauses (4), (4A), (4B) and (6) enable reservation.

Employment. Air India v. Nergesh Meerza (1981) 4 SCC 335 struck down a regulation terminating an air hostess's service on first pregnancy as unreasonable and arbitrary under Article 14, though it upheld the different retirement ages, a part of the decision that would not survive Anuj Garg. Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan (1997) 6 SCC 241 held that sexual harassment at the workplace violates Articles 14, 15, 19(1)(g) and 21 and laid down binding guidelines, drawing on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, which India ratified on 9 July 1993; those guidelines were replaced by the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013. Charu Khurana v. Union of India (2015) 1 SCC 192 struck down a trade union rule excluding women from being make-up artists. Anuj Garg struck down section 30 of the Punjab Excise Act, 1914, which forbade the employment of women in premises where liquor was consumed. Secretary, Ministry of Defence v. Babita Puniya (2020) 7 SCC 469 held that the denial of permanent commission to women officers in the Army was based on sex stereotypes and violated Article 14, and Union of India v. Lt. Cdr. Annie Nagaraja (2020) 13 SCC 1 applied the same to the Navy.

Criminal law and bodily autonomy. Joseph Shine v. Union of India (2018) 2 SCC 189 struck down section 497 of the Penal Code, holding that a law which treats a married woman as her husband's property and gives her no locus to complain offends Articles 14, 15 and 21. Independent Thought v. Union of India (2017) 10 SCC 800 read down Exception 2 to section 375 so that sexual intercourse with a wife below eighteen is rape. X v. Principal Secretary, Health and Family Welfare Department, NCT of Delhi (2023) 9 SCC 433 held that the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Rules could not distinguish between married and unmarried women, and that reproductive autonomy is part of Article 21. Laxmi v. Union of India (2014) 4 SCC 427 produced the acid-sale regulation regime.

Now the critical half. Three limits should be stated. First, Article 15(1) binds the State, and though Article 15(2) is horizontal it reaches only shops, hotels and places of public resort; discrimination in private employment is met by statute, not by the Constitution directly, though Kaushal Kishor (2023) may change that. Second, personal law itself has never been squarely tested: State of Bombay v. Narasu Appa Mali (AIR 1952 Bom 84) held that uncodified personal law is not "law in force" within Article 13, so it cannot be struck down for inconsistency with Part III; that reasoning has been doubted repeatedly, including by Chandrachud J. in Indian Young Lawyers Association, but it has not been overruled, and it is why Shayara Bano proceeded on manifest arbitrariness of a practice rather than on the invalidity of a personal law system. Third, Article 44 and the uniform civil code remain a directive principle, and in Sarla Mudgal v. Union of India (1995) 3 SCC 635 and John Vallamattom v. Union of India (2003) 6 SCC 611 the Court observed on the point but did not, and could not, direct enactment.

For full marks, cover: Article 324 and the Commission's three functions; the reforms it has carried out and those imposed on it; then the second half of the question expressly, which is the link between independence and fairness, taking each guarantee of independence in turn and asking what it actually secures.

Advisory: under Articles 103(2) and 192(2), where a question arises whether a member of Parliament or of a State legislature has become subject to a disqualification, the President or the Governor decides according to the opinion of the Election Commission, and that opinion is binding. Section 8A of the 1951 Act gives it a similar role on disqualification for corrupt practices.

Quasi-judicial: deciding disputes about the recognition of parties and the allotment of symbols in a split, a jurisdiction upheld in Sadiq Ali v. Election Commission of India (1972) 4 SCC 664, and disqualification questions referred to it.

The width of its power, and its limit. Mohinder Singh Gill v. Chief Election Commissioner (1978) 1 SCC 405 held Article 324 to be a reservoir of power enabling the Commission to act where the law is silent, subject to natural justice and to the statute where one exists. A.C. Jose v. Sivan Pillai (1984) 2 SCC 656 held that the Commission cannot act contrary to an existing statute. Kanhiya Lal Omar v. R.K. Trivedi (1985) 4 SCC 628 upheld the Symbols Order as within Article 324. T.N. Seshan v. Union of India (1995) 4 SCC 611 held the Commission to be a multi-member body in which the Chief Election Commissioner is not superior to his colleagues.

Security of tenure, and how far it goes. Article 324(5) provides that the Chief Election Commissioner shall not be removed except in like manner and on the like grounds as a Judge of the Supreme Court, that is, by an address of both Houses on proved misbehaviour or incapacity; and that his conditions of service shall not be varied to his disadvantage after appointment. This is a genuine and strong protection, and it is why a Chief Election Commissioner can refuse a government's request without fear. But it protects one of three members. An Election Commissioner may be removed on the recommendation of the Chief Election Commissioner, which is a weaker protection, and the Court in T.N. Seshan justified the difference as necessary to prevent the Commissioners from being susceptible to executive pressure while keeping the Commission from becoming unaccountable. The Law Commission's 255th Report (2015) recommended extending the Article 324(5) protection to all three.

Appointment, which is the weakest link. For seventy-three years the appointment was by the executive alone. In Anoop Baranwal v. Union of India (2023) 6 SCC 161, decided 2 March 2023, a Constitution Bench held unanimously that the appointment must be made by the President on the advice of a committee comprising the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and the Chief Justice of India, until Parliament made a law. The Court's reasoning bears directly on the question asked: democracy is a facet of the basic structure, free and fair elections are inseparable from it, and an Election Commission appointed exclusively by the executive cannot deliver them with the necessary appearance of impartiality. Parliament then enacted the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023, replacing the Chief Justice of India on the selection committee with a Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister. The validity of that substitution is under challenge and has not been decided.

Conclusion. The Election Commission's role in electoral reform has been that of an administrator with a very wide discretionary power and almost no power to change the law, so the reforms it has delivered are the ones it could implement itself, the Model Code, the identity card, the machines and expenditure control, while the reforms that required a change in the law, disclosure, immediate disqualification, the end of anonymous corporate funding, have come from the Supreme Court. Its independence contributes to free and fair elections in a very specific way: it makes credible a power that is otherwise alarmingly wide, because the same reservoir of power under Article 324 that lets the Commission postpone a poll or transfer a district officer would be a danger in dependent hands. That independence is secured strongly for one member by Article 324(5), weakly for the other two, not at all in the matter of finance and staffing, and, since the 2023 Act, doubtfully in the matter of appointment. The Commission's authority today rests less on its constitutional protection than on seven decades of public belief that its count is honest, and that is an asset that can be lost far faster than it was built.

Where secularism sits in the text. The word appears in the Preamble, inserted by the Forty-second Amendment, 1976. The concept was there from 1950 in Articles 14, 15, 16, 25 to 28, 29, 30, 44, 51A(e) and 325, and in the absence of any established religion anywhere in the document. In Dr. Balram Singh v. Union of India, decided 25 November 2024, the Court dismissed a challenge to the insertion of "socialist" and "secular", holding that Parliament's amending power under Article 368 extends to the Preamble, that the Constitution is a living document, and that both words have by long usage acquired accepted meanings, socialism denoting a welfare State and not a bar on private enterprise.

Secularism is part of the basic structure. Named in Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala (1973) 4 SCC 225, applied in Indira Nehru Gandhi v. Raj Narain 1975 Supp SCC 1, and given operative force in S.R. Bommai, where a nine-judge bench upheld the dismissal of four State governments under Article 356 after the demolition of 6 December 1992, holding that a State government which acts against secularism can be dismissed and that the Proclamation is justiciable.

One, by defining the protected core. Commissioner, Hindu Religious Endowments, Madras v. Sri Lakshmindra Thirtha Swamiar of Sri Shirur Mutt (AIR 1954 SC 282) created the essential religious practices doctrine, holding that what is essential is to be determined with reference to the doctrines of the religion itself; Durgah Committee, Ajmer v. Syed Hussain Ali (AIR 1961 SC 1402) narrowed it by excluding superstitious and unessential accretions. The doctrine is the instrument by which the Court decides how far the State may go.

Two, by permitting State regulation of the secular. Sri Venkataramana Devaru v. State of Mysore (AIR 1958 SC 255) reconciled Article 25(2)(b) with Article 26(b), holding that the temple must be thrown open to all classes of Hindus but that the denomination may regulate participation in particular ceremonies. Ismail Faruqui v. Union of India (1994) 6 SCC 360 upheld acquisition of the disputed site, holding that a mosque is not an essential part of the practice of Islam.

First, the Constitution does not require the State to treat all religions identically. It requires it not to discriminate, which is different. Article 25(2)(b) speaks of Hindu religious institutions by name, and Explanation II extends "Hindus" to Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists. The temple entry legislation, the takeover of temple administration by State endowment departments in several States, and the codification of Hindu personal law between 1955 and 1956 have no counterpart for other communities. Whether that is unequal treatment or the unavoidable consequence of reforming the practices that produced untouchability is genuinely contested, and a candidate should present both sides.

Second, Article 30 gives minorities a right to establish and administer educational institutions that the majority does not have, and Pramati Educational and Cultural Trust v. Union of India (2014) 8 SCC 1 exempted minority institutions entirely from the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009. In Aligarh Muslim University v. Naresh Agarwal, decided 8 November 2024, a seven-judge bench held by 4:3 that an institution incorporated by statute may still be a minority institution if it was established by a minority, overruling S. Azeez Basha v. Union of India (AIR 1968 SC 662) on that point. Equality of treatment is therefore not the operative principle in this field either; differential protection is.

Conclusion. The first limb of the statement is exactly right: the Indian State has no religion, establishes none, funds none as such by force of Article 27, and may be dismissed under Article 356 for departing from that position after Bommai. The second limb is a useful shorthand and a poor description. The Constitution does not treat all religions identically; it authorises the State to intervene in religion for social reform, and the clause that authorises it names Hindu institutions expressly, while Article 30 gives minorities a protection the majority does not have. Indian secularism is therefore a doctrine of equal respect with unequal intervention, calibrated to the reform each community's practices were thought to require in 1950. The judiciary has upheld it consistently as a basic feature, and the instrument it uses, the essential religious practices doctrine, is the strongest criticism of its own method, which is why the nine-judge reference in Kantaru Rajeevaru matters more than any other pending constitutional case in this field.

As a fundamental right of a minority to conserve its culture. Article 29(1) gives any section of citizens having a distinct language, script or culture of its own the right to conserve it. Two features are important: the right is given to a section of citizens, not only to a minority, so it is wider than Article 30; and it protects language and script directly. Article 29(2) forbids denial of admission to a State-maintained or State-aided educational institution on grounds only of religion, race, caste, language or any of them, and is a right of the individual citizen, not of the group, as State of Madras v. Champakam Dorairajan (AIR 1951 SC 226) held.

As a set of special safeguards in Part XVII. Article 347 empowers the President, on demand, to direct that a language spoken by a substantial proportion of a State's population be officially recognised in that State. Article 350 gives every person the right to submit a representation for redress of grievance to any officer or authority of the Union or a State in any of the languages used in the Union or in the State. Article 350A, inserted by the Seventh Amendment, 1956, directs every State and local authority to endeavour to provide adequate facilities for instruction in the mother tongue at the primary stage to children belonging to linguistic minority groups. Article 350B, inserted by the same amendment on the recommendation of the States Reorganisation Commission, provides for a Special Officer for Linguistic Minorities, appointed by the President, to investigate all matters relating to the safeguards and to report to the President, the report to be laid before Parliament and sent to the States concerned. Article 345 lets a State adopt an official language, and Article 348 keeps English as the language of the higher courts unless the Governor, with the President's previous consent, authorises otherwise.

(b) Panchayati Raj

Panchayati raj is local self-government at the village, intermediate and district levels, given constitutional status by the Seventy-third Amendment, 1992, in force from 24 April 1993. Before it, local bodies existed at the pleasure of the State legislature under entry 5 of List II, and supersession without election was routine. Article 40, a directive principle, had asked the State to organise village panchayats and endow them with such powers and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function as units of self-government, and four committees, Balwant Rai Mehta (1957), which proposed the three-tier structure, Ashok Mehta (1978), which proposed a two-tier one, G.V.K. Rao (1985) and L.M. Singhvi (1986), which first proposed constitutional status, had recommended action.

Part IX, Articles 243 to 243-O, and the Eleventh Schedule. The mandatory features:

1. Gram Sabha, a body of all persons registered in the electoral roll of a village, Article 243A, whose powers are left to the State legislature.
2. Three tiers, at village, intermediate and district level, the intermediate tier optional in States with a population not exceeding twenty lakh, Article 243B.

9. State Election Commission, with superintendence, direction and control of panchayat elections vested in a State Election Commissioner removable only in the manner of a High Court Judge, Article 243K.
10. Bar on judicial interference in delimitation and in election matters except by election petition, Article 243-O.

PESA. The Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 extends Part IX to Fifth Schedule areas with modifications that make the Gram Sabha competent to safeguard traditions, to approve plans, to be consulted before land acquisition and before the grant of prospecting licences for minor minerals, and to manage minor forest produce.

The assessment. Elections and reservation, the parts made mandatory, have been delivered: three million elected representatives, more than 1.4 million of them women. Devolution of functions and finances, left to the State legislature by Articles 243G and 243H, has not, and varies enormously between States, which is why the Second Administrative Reforms Commission's Sixth Report described the transfer of the twenty-nine subjects as largely nominal in most States. A constitutional guarantee of an election is not the same as a guarantee of self-government.

(c) Impact of Privatization on Education

The constitutional starting point is that education moved from the State List to the Concurrent List by the Forty-second Amendment, 1976, and that education is now the subject of a fundamental right at the elementary stage under Article 21A, a fundamental freedom of occupation for the provider under Article 19(1)(g), and a fundamental right of minorities under Article 30(1). Privatisation is therefore not a policy question outside the Constitution; it is a collision between those provisions.

The case law is a single argument conducted over thirty years.

Parliament reversed Inamdar by the Ninety-third Amendment, 2005, inserting Article 15(5) to permit special provision for backward classes and Scheduled Castes and Tribes in educational institutions including private unaided ones, minority institutions excepted; upheld for aided institutions in Ashoka Kumar Thakur v. Union of India (2008) 6 SCC 1 and for unaided ones in Pramati Educational and Cultural Trust v. Union of India (2014) 8 SCC 1.

At the school level the same collision produced section 12(1)(c) of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, requiring unaided schools to admit at least twenty-five per cent of the entry class from weaker and disadvantaged groups against State reimbursement. It was upheld in Society for Unaided Private Schools of Rajasthan v. Union of India (2012) 6 SCC 102 as a reasonable restriction on Article 19(1)(g), and held inapplicable to minority institutions; Pramati extended that exemption to all minority schools, aided or unaided.

(d) Creations of New States

Article 3 is the operative provision and it is remarkably wide. Parliament may by law form a new State by separation of territory from any State, or by uniting two or more States or parts of States, or by uniting any territory to a part of any State; increase or diminish the area of any State; and alter the boundaries or the name of any State. The proviso requires only two things: the Bill must be introduced on the recommendation of the President, and the President must first refer it to the legislature of the State affected for its views within a specified period.

Three consequences follow, and they are what make Indian federalism distinctive. The State's views are not binding; the President may act after the period expires whether or not views are expressed; and there is no requirement of consent. No Indian State has a guaranteed territorial existence, which is the sharpest single difference from the American and Australian federations. Article 4 completes the scheme by providing that a law under Article 2 or 3 may contain consequential amendments of the First and Fourth Schedules and shall not be deemed to be an amendment of the Constitution for the purposes of Article 368, so no special majority and no State ratification is required.

The history in one paragraph. The States Reorganisation Commission (Fazl Ali, K.M. Panikkar and H.N. Kunzru) reported in 1955 and the States Reorganisation Act, 1956 with the Seventh Amendment redrew the map on a broadly linguistic basis, after the agitation that followed the death of Potti Sriramulu and the creation of Andhra in 1953. Later creations: Maharashtra and Gujarat (1960), Nagaland (1963), Haryana and Himachal Pradesh (1966 and 1971), Meghalaya, Manipur and Tripura (1971 to 1972), Sikkim (1975, by the Thirty-sixth Amendment), Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and Goa (1987), Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand (2000), and Telangana by the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014.

Conclusion. These four notes trace the same theme through different provisions. Language, in Articles 29, 30 and 350A, is protected as an aspect of identity that the majoritarian process cannot be trusted with. Panchayati raj shows a constitutional guarantee that succeeded exactly as far as it was made mandatory. Privatisation of education shows a right, Article 21A, whose delivery now depends on actors who are not the State and therefore not bound by Part III. And Article 3 shows that the Indian Union may redraw its own units by an ordinary majority, which is why In Re: Article 370 mattered so much: the only real check on that power turned out to be the political process and a direction to restore statehood at the earliest.