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Constitutionalism Pluralism and Federalism
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LLM · Group 1 Constitutional and Administrative Law
2025-26 Examination
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LLM Group 1 Constitutional and Administrative Law Constitutionalism Pluralism and Federalism 2025-26 Question Paper with Solutions
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First published on munotes.in on 12 August 2026.
This edition revised 29 September 2026.
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Model answers written and edited by the munotes.in editorial desk.
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The University does not publish an official answer key for this paper. The answers in this volume are model answers, written to show how a full-mark answer is built. They are a study aid, not an authority on what an examiner marked.
The question paper reproduced here is the paper as set by the University of Mumbai at the 2025-26 examination.
The answers in this volume state the law as it stands today, not as it stood when the paper was set, and in this subject five changes alter answers. Aligarh Muslim University v. Naresh Agarwal, 8 November 2024, overruled Azeez Basha on the minority character of an institution incorporated by statute. State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh, 1 August 2024, overruled E.V. Chinnaiah and permits sub-classification within the Scheduled Castes. Mineral Area Development Authority v. Steel Authority of India, 25 July 2024, overruled India Cement on the States' power to tax mineral rights. In Re Article 370, 11 December 2023, upheld the abrogation and the reorganisation, and the statehood it directed has still not been restored. And Uttarakhand's uniform civil code came into force on 27 January 2025, with Gujarat passing its own on 24 March 2026. Where an answer relies on any of these it gives the date.
Contents
The questions below are the paper as the University of Mumbai set it at the 2025-26 examination, in the order it was set.
MarksPage
The Paper as Set
The questions in this volume are the questions asked at the 2025-26 examination, reproduced as the University of Mumbai set them, in the order it set them. Nothing has been reworded, added or left out. Only the answers are ours. See the original question paper.
Duration 3 hours · Total marks 100 · 7 questions answered
How to use this volume
Solve the paper first, under exam conditions and against the clock. Then read the answers here and mark your own. Reading a solution before attempting the question feels productive and teaches very little, because recognising an answer is not the same as being able to write one.
SECTION I
Q.P. form 04605, sat 27 February 2026, FYLLM Sem I
any four of seven, 25 each · 100 Marks
1)Bringing out the features of Constitutionalism discuss the constitutional provisions and judicial interpretations that bolster Constitutionalism in India[25]
Answer
For full marks, cover: the distinction between having a constitution and having constitutionalism, which is the whole point of the term; the features, listed and explained; then, as the stem demands, the Indian provisions and the Indian judicial interpretations separately, taking each feature in turn; the provisions and practices that work against constitutionalism, because an answer that only praises has not discussed; and a conclusion.
Constitutionalism is not the same as a constitution
Every State has a constitution; not every State has constitutionalism. The distinction is the starting point and it should be made in the first two sentences. C. H. McIlwain put it that constitutionalism has one essential quality, a legal limitation on government, and is the antithesis of arbitrary rule. Carl Friedrich described it as the institutionalised system of effective, regularised restraints upon governmental action. A constitution which confers total power on one organ, or which can be set aside at will, is a constitution without constitutionalism, and the Soviet Constitution of 1936 is the standard example: a generous bill of rights alongside a system in which none of it was enforceable.
The Indian Supreme Court has adopted this distinction expressly. In Rameshwar Prasad v. Union of India, (2006) 2 SCC 1, the Court observed that constitutionalism envisages a polity governed by an overarching set of rules limiting the discretionary power of those who govern, and that the antithesis of constitutionalism is arbitrariness. In I.R. Coelho v. State of Tamil Nadu, (2007) 2 SCC 1, it said that constitutionalism is a legal principle requiring control over the exercise of governmental power to ensure that the democratic principle is not undermined, and that the principle of constitutionalism is now a legal principle which requires control over the exercise of governmental power.
The features
Six features are conventionally listed and each has an Indian home.
A written constitution which is supreme, so that no organ may act outside it. Limited government, meaning that every power is a conferred power and may be exercised only for the purpose for which it was conferred. Separation of powers, so that no organ combines the making, the applying and the adjudicating of law. Rule of law, so that power is exercised by known rules and is answerable in an independent court. Guaranteed and enforceable fundamental rights, since a right without a remedy is a description of a policy. And accountability, through periodic free elections, a responsible executive, an independent audit and a free press.
Two further features are sometimes added and both matter in India. Federalism, because the vertical division of power is as much a limit on government as the horizontal one. And an entrenched amendment procedure, so that the limits cannot be removed by the ordinary majority they bind.
The provisions
Supremacy and limited government. Article 13(1) and (2) void any law inconsistent with Part III. Article 245 subjects all legislative power to the Constitution. Articles 53, 73, 154 and 162 confer executive power in terms and therefore confine it.
Rights and remedies. Part III, and above all Article 32, which makes the right to move the Supreme Court itself a fundamental right; Ambedkar called it the very soul of the Constitution and the heart of it. Article 226 gives the High Courts a wider power. Articles 20 and 21 are non-derogable even during an emergency after the Forty-fourth Amendment, 1978, which was enacted precisely so that A.D.M. Jabalpur v. Shivakant Shukla, (1976) 2 SCC 521, could not be repeated.
Separation of powers and judicial independence. Article 50 directs separation of the judiciary from the executive; Articles 121 and 211 forbid discussion in the legislatures of the conduct of a judge; Articles 124 and 217 provide for appointment and for removal only by an address of both Houses supported by special majorities; salaries are charged on the Consolidated Fund and cannot be varied to a judge's disadvantage.
Accountability. Article 75(3) and Article 164(2) make the Council of Ministers collectively responsible to the popular house. Article 324 vests superintendence of elections in an independent Election Commission. Article 148 creates the Comptroller and Auditor General, whose reports go to the legislature under Articles 151 and 279. Articles 315 to 323 create the Public Service Commissions. Article 267 and Articles 266 and 114 require legislative authorisation for expenditure.
Entrenchment. Article 368 requires a special majority, and its proviso requires ratification by half the State legislatures for the federal provisions, which was enforced against Parliament in Union of India v. Rajendra N. Shah, (2021) SCC OnLine SC 474.
The judicial interpretations
This is where the marks are, and each interpretation should be tied to the feature it protects.
Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala, (1973) 4 SCC 225, protects entrenchment. Thirteen judges held by seven to six that the amending power under Article 368 does not extend to altering the basic structure, so that a two thirds majority cannot convert the Constitution into a different kind of document. It also struck down the second part of Article 31C, because a clause providing that a legislative declaration should not be questioned in any court removes judicial review.
Minerva Mills Ltd. v. Union of India, (1980) 3 SCC 625, protects limited government at its most abstract. Clauses (4) and (5) of Article 368, inserted by the Forty-second Amendment, declared that no amendment could be questioned and that there was no limitation on the amending power. Both were struck down: a limited power cannot be used to make itself unlimited, and the harmony between Parts III and IV is itself a basic feature.
Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India, (1978) 1 SCC 248, protects rights. The petitioner's passport was impounded "in the interests of the general public" with no reasons. Seven judges held that Articles 14, 19 and 21 are not mutually exclusive but form a single scheme, and that the procedure contemplated by Article 21 must be right, just and fair and not arbitrary, fanciful or oppressive. That decision converted a formal requirement of a statute into a substantive requirement of fairness, which is constitutionalism in operation.
S.R. Bommai v. Union of India, (1994) 3 SCC 1, protects federalism and accountability. Nine judges held that the President's satisfaction under Article 356 is justiciable, that a majority must be tested on the floor of the House, and that an Assembly may not be dissolved before Parliament approves the proclamation. The most centralising power in the Constitution was made a reviewable power.
L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India, (1997) 3 SCC 261, protects the remedy. Seven judges held that the power of judicial review under Articles 32 and 226 is an integral and essential feature and part of the basic structure, and struck down Article 323A(2)(d) so far as it excluded the High Courts' jurisdiction over tribunals. I.R. Coelho closed the Ninth Schedule route, holding that laws placed there after 24 April 1973 may be tested against the basic structure.
Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association v. Union of India, (2016) 5 SCC 1, protects judicial independence, striking down the Ninety-ninth Amendment and the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act by four to one.
K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, (2017) 10 SCC 1, protects the individual against the modern State, recognising privacy under Article 21, adopting a proportionality test of legitimate aim, rational connection, necessity and balance, and overruling ADM Jabalpur.
Four recent decisions show the principle applied to concrete abuses. Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India, (2020) 3 SCC 637: an indefinite internet suspension is impermissible and every order must be published so that it can be challenged. Association for Democratic Reforms v. Union of India, decided 15 February 2024: the electoral bonds scheme violated the voter's right to information under Article 19(1)(a). In Re: Directions in the matter of demolition of structures, decided 13 November 2024: punitive demolition of an accused person's property is contrary to the rule of law and usurps the judicial function. And Madhyamam Broadcasting Ltd. v. Union of India, decided 5 April 2023: sealed cover procedure offends natural justice and open justice.
What works against constitutionalism
A discussion must include the counter-evidence, and five items belong in it.
Emergency powers. Articles 352, 356 and 360 permit the suspension of the federal structure and, under Article 359, of the enforcement of most fundamental rights. The Forty-fourth Amendment tightened the conditions and excluded Articles 20 and 21 from suspension, but the architecture remains.
Preventive detention. Article 22(3) removes the safeguards of clauses (1) and (2) from a preventive detainee, and Article 22(4) permits detention for up to three months without reference to an Advisory Board. India is unusual among constitutional democracies in authorising preventive detention in the constitutional text itself.
Ordinance government. Articles 123 and 213 permit legislation by the executive when the legislature is not in session. In D.C. Wadhwa v. State of Bihar, (1987) 1 SCC 378, the Court found that Bihar had promulgated 256 ordinances between 1967 and 1981, kept alive by mechanical re-promulgation for periods ranging from one year to fourteen, and held the practice a fraud on the Constitution. In Krishna Kumar Singh v. State of Bihar, (2017) 3 SCC 1, a seven judge Bench held that re-promulgation is a fraud on the Constitution and a subversion of democratic legislative processes, that the satisfaction of the President or Governor is subject to judicial review on the ground of mala fides or an absence of relevant material, and that an ordinance does not create enduring rights unless the legislature approves it.
The Money Bill route. A Bill certified by the Speaker as a Money Bill under Article 110 bypasses the Council of States. Its use for the Aadhaar Act, 2016, and for amendments to tribunal law was challenged, and in Rojer Mathew v. South Indian Bank Ltd., (2020) 6 SCC 1, a Constitution Bench doubted the majority reasoning in K.S. Puttaswamy (Aadhaar-5) v. Union of India, (2019) 1 SCC 1, and referred the scope of Article 110 to a larger Bench, where it remains pending.
Delay. A constitutional guarantee vindicated after ten years is a weak guarantee, and the Delhi services litigation, where the judgment of 11 May 2023 was reversed by statute within a week and the challenge to that statute is still pending before a Constitution Bench, is the clearest illustration.
Conclusion. Constitutionalism means limited government, and India possesses both the text and, for the most part, the practice. The text supplies supremacy in Articles 13 and 245, enforceable rights in Part III with Article 32 at their centre, judicial independence in Articles 50, 124 and 217, accountability in Articles 75(3), 148 and 324, and entrenchment in Article 368. The judicial interpretations supply what the text cannot: Kesavananda and Minerva Mills made the limits unamendable, Maneka Gandhi made procedure substantive, Bommai made the emergency power reviewable, L. Chandra Kumar and I.R. Coelho made the remedy itself part of the basic structure, and Puttaswamy supplied proportionality as the standard for every future limitation. Against that stand emergency powers, constitutional preventive detention, ordinance government which the Court had to condemn twice in thirty years, an unresolved question about the Money Bill route, and delay. The honest verdict is that India has constitutionalism because its courts have insisted on it, and that this is both the system's strength and its single point of failure.
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