LLM Group 1 Constitutional and Administrative Law Constitutionalism Pluralism and Federalism 2015 Question Paper with Solutions

The question then asserts an object: that the insertion was to spell the ideals out "expressly". That is the claim to be examined, and the honest answer is that it is largely right about secularism, partly right about socialism and almost entirely right about integrity. Each has to be taken separately, because the three words have had very different careers in the courts.

The Preamble matters to this question for a reason that must be stated at the outset. In Berubari Union, In re, AIR 1960 SC 845, the Court treated the Preamble as a key to the makers' minds but not as a part of the Constitution. In Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala, (1973) 4 SCC 225, the fuller Bench corrected that: the Preamble is a part of the Constitution, it is amendable under Article 368, and it is the surest guide to the Constitution's basic features. Both propositions are needed here, because a word inserted into the Preamble is neither decoration nor an unamendable eternity clause; it is text with interpretive force.

S.R. Bommai v. Union of India, (1994) 3 SCC 1, is the case this question turns on and it must be given with its facts. After the demolition of the Babri Masjid on 6 December 1992, the Union dismissed the governments of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh under Article 356, having earlier dismissed the Bommai government in Karnataka on a claim of lost majority. The dismissed Chief Ministers challenged the proclamations. A nine judge Bench held that secularism is a basic feature of the Constitution, that a State government which acts against the secular character of the polity gives ground for action under Article 356, and, crucially for constitutionalism, that the President's satisfaction is justiciable and the material on which it rests may be examined. The Karnataka dismissal was held bad because the majority question should have been tested on the floor of the House.

Ziyauddin Burhanuddin Bukhari v. Brijmohan Ramdass Mehra, (1976) 2 SCC 17, decided in the very year of the amendment, shows the courts enforcing secularism in electoral law without needing the new word. Election speeches appealing to religion were held to be a corrupt practice, the Court observing that the Constitution's makers intended to establish a secular State in which the State does not identify itself with any religion. Abhiram Singh v. C.D. Commachen, (2017) 2 SCC 629, took this further, holding by four to three that "his religion" in section 123(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 covers the religion of the voter as well as of the candidate, so that a communal appeal of any kind corrupts the election.

Bijoe Emmanuel v. State of Kerala, (1987) 3 SCC 615, is the case for the individual side of secularism. Three children of Jehovah's Witnesses stood respectfully during the national anthem at school but did not sing, because their faith forbade it, and they were expelled. The Court held that there was no law compelling singing, that Article 25 protected their belief, and it restored them to school, observing that our tradition teaches tolerance and our Constitution practises it. Secularism is not only a restraint on the State's identification with a majority; it is a protection of the dissenting believer.

Socialism: the weakest of the three

Socialism has done less work than secularism, and a good answer says so. The word gave the courts a reason to read Part IV more strongly, but it never became an independent test of validity. In Excel Wear v. Union of India, (1978) 4 SCC 224, the Court struck down a requirement of prior government approval for closure of an undertaking as an unreasonable restriction under Article 19(1)(g), and expressly refused to let the new word in the Preamble carry the provision. In D.S. Nakara v. Union of India, (1983) 1 SCC 305, by contrast, the word helped: a pension scheme that benefited only those retiring after a cut-off date was struck down under Article 14, the Court reading the socialist declaration as a mandate to reduce inequality of income and status.

Its practical operation is visible in the anti-defection and unlawful-activities cases and in Article 356 practice, and it was expressly relied on in Bommai, where the Court treated a threat to the unity and integrity of the country as material relevant to a proclamation. The word does not create a power; it names an interest that other provisions protect.

The criticism, which must be stated

The Forty-second Amendment was enacted during the Emergency by a Parliament whose Opposition was largely in detention, and the same Act inserted Articles 31C, 32A, 131A, 144A, 226A, 323A and 323B and attempted to make the amending power unreviewable by Article 368(4) and (5). Those clauses were struck down in Minerva Mills Ltd. v. Union of India, (1980) 3 SCC 625, as destructive of the basic structure, since a limited amending power cannot be converted into an unlimited one, and the balance between Parts III and IV is itself a basic feature. Two consequences follow for this question. First, the provenance of the Preamble amendment is not a reason to read it down, because Balram Singh has since upheld it. Second, the fact that so much of the same statute was struck down while the Preamble amendment survived is itself evidence that the Preamble words added a declaration rather than a power.

For full marks, cover: the classical statement by Dicey and its three limbs; the standard criticism of each limb; the modern content of the doctrine including the formal and substantive versions; the Indian constitutional home of the doctrine in Articles 13, 14 and 21; the case law that made it a basic feature, worked in full; the honest catalogue of Indian departures from it; and a reasoned conclusion.

Dicey's three meanings, and what is wrong with each

A. V. Dicey, in the Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (1885), gave the doctrine the three limbs that every examination answer must begin with. First, the absolute supremacy of regular law as opposed to arbitrary power, so that a person may be punished only for a distinct breach of law established before an ordinary court. Second, equality before the law, meaning the equal subjection of all classes to the ordinary law administered by the ordinary courts, which for Dicey excluded a separate body of administrative law. Third, that in England the general principles of the constitution are the result of judicial decisions in particular cases, so that rights are the source of the constitution rather than its product.

The doctrine as it is now understood

Modern statements divide into formal and substantive versions and the difference decides real cases. The formal or thin version, associated with Joseph Raz, asks only how law is made and applied: rules must be prospective, open, clear, relatively stable, made by open and general rules, applied by an independent judiciary with accessible courts and reviewable discretion. On that view the rule of law is a virtue of legal systems and is compatible with a good deal of injustice. The substantive or thick version, associated with Lord Bingham and reflected in the International Commission of Jurists' Delhi Declaration of 1959, includes protection of fundamental human rights, which is the version the Indian Supreme Court has in fact applied.

The Indian constitutional home of the doctrine

India does not use the phrase in the constitutional text, and it does not need to. Article 13 makes any law inconsistent with Part III void, which is the supremacy limb. Article 14 guarantees equality before the law and the equal protection of the laws, which is the equality limb in both its English and its American forms. Article 21 requires a procedure established by law for any deprivation of life or personal liberty, and after Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India, (1978) 1 SCC 248, that procedure must be right, just and fair and not arbitrary, fanciful or oppressive. Articles 32 and 226 supply the remedy without which the rest is advice.

S.G. Jaisinghani v. Union of India, AIR 1967 SC 1427, supplies the sentence most often quoted in Indian judgments on the subject: the absence of arbitrary power is the first essential of the rule of law, and where discretion is conferred it must be confined within clearly defined limits, so that decisions are made by known rules and not by chance or caprice. The case concerned seniority rules in the Income Tax Service, which is a useful reminder that the doctrine mostly operates in unglamorous administrative disputes rather than in constitutional set pieces.

The case that shows what happens when the doctrine fails

A.D.M. Jabalpur v. Shivakant Shukla, (1976) 2 SCC 521, must be worked in full, because it is the strongest teaching example in Indian constitutional law. During the Emergency, the President suspended the right to move any court for enforcement of Articles 14, 21 and 22, and thousands were detained under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act, 1971. Several High Courts nevertheless entertained habeas corpus petitions on the ground that a detention which did not comply with the statute could be challenged independently of Article 21. The Union appealed.

The majority, four to one, held that during the Emergency no person had any locus standi to move a writ petition for habeas corpus, even to allege that the detention was without authority of law or mala fide. The Attorney General accepted in argument that on that view there would be no remedy if a policeman shot a detenu without authority. The consequences were exactly what that concession implied.

The honest catalogue of departures

A strong answer does not stop at praise, because the doctrine's Indian record is mixed. Preventive detention is authorised by Article 22 itself and permits detention without trial for up to three months without reference to an Advisory Board, which no thick conception of the rule of law can comfortably accommodate. Article 361 gives the President and Governors personal immunity from court process. Delegated legislation is now the bulk of the statute book, and much of it is laid before legislatures that do not scrutinise it. Costs and delay make the courts inaccessible in practice to precisely the people the doctrine is meant to protect, which is why access to justice was declared a fundamental right in Anita Kushwaha v. Pushap Sudan, (2016) 8 SCC 509.

Conclusion. Dicey's formulation is the historical starting point and is inadequate as it stands: its second and third limbs cannot survive a written constitution and a developed administrative state. What has survived, and what India has adopted, is the substantive version, in which the rule of law means that all power is derived from law, is exercised within legal limits, and is answerable in an independent court, and that the law itself must respect fundamental rights. In India the doctrine is not an unwritten inheritance but a basic feature of a written Constitution, expressed through Articles 13, 14 and 21 and enforced through Articles 32 and 226. Its high points are Indira Nehru Gandhi, Royappa, Puttaswamy and the demolition directions; its low point is ADM Jabalpur, and the fact that the lone dissent in that case is now the law is the best evidence available that the doctrine is a living constraint rather than a formula.

The premise: why protection and equality are not in conflict

The objection to be answered first is that special protection for named groups contradicts equality. The Constitution answers it in its own text. Article 14 guarantees equal protection of the laws, which has always meant that likes must be treated alike and unlikes may be treated differently. Article 15(1) forbids discrimination, and Articles 15(3), (4), (5) and (6) then authorise special provision. Article 16(1) guarantees equality of opportunity and Article 16(4) authorises reservation. The special provisions are not exceptions grafted onto equality; they are the means by which a society that begins unequal can reach it, which is how the Court put it in State of Kerala v. N.M. Thomas, (1976) 2 SCC 310, holding that Article 16(4) is not an exception to Article 16(1) but an emphatic statement of what equality of opportunity requires.

Pluralism supplies the second half of the premise. India's diversity is not only religious; it is of caste, tribe, language and gender, and disadvantage attaches to membership of a group rather than to individual misfortune. A remedy addressed to individuals cannot reach a disability that is inherited, which is why the Constitution names groups.

Indra Sawhney v. Union of India, 1992 Supp (3) SCC 217, is the governing authority and must be given with its facts. The Mandal Commission had recommended 27 per cent reservation in central services for Other Backward Classes, and an office memorandum of 1990 implemented it; a second memorandum added 10 per cent for the economically backward among the forward classes. A nine judge Bench upheld the 27 per cent, struck down the 10 per cent for want of any basis in Article 16(4), and laid down the framework still in force: backwardness under Article 16(4) is social and educational and not merely economic; the socially advanced among a backward class, the creamy layer, must be excluded; reservation should not ordinarily exceed 50 per cent; and Article 16(4) does not extend to promotions.

State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh, decided 1 August 2024, is the most important recent change and any answer written from an older textbook will be wrong. A seven judge Bench held by six to one that States may sub-classify within the Scheduled Castes, giving a preference within the quota to the most disadvantaged sub-groups, and overruled E.V. Chinnaiah v. State of Andhra Pradesh, (2005) 1 SCC 394, which had treated the Presidential list as a homogeneous class incapable of division. The Court required sub-classification to rest on quantifiable data of inadequate representation and forbade the reservation of the entire quota for a single sub-group. Four judges also expressed the view that the creamy layer principle should be applied to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

Women

The constitutional provisions are Articles 15(1), 15(3), 16(2), 23, 39(a), 39(d), 39(e), 42, 51A(e) and the reservations in Articles 243D(3) and 243T(3). Article 15(3) is the enabling clause, and it is not read as a licence for protective discrimination that harms: in C.B. Muthamma v. Union of India, (1979) 4 SCC 260, a rule requiring a woman in the Indian Foreign Service to obtain written permission before marriage and permitting her removal on marriage was held to be a hangover of the masculine culture and struck down. In Air India v. Nergesh Meerza, (1981) 4 SCC 335, the Court struck down the termination of air hostesses on first pregnancy as unreasonable and arbitrary, while upholding a differential retirement age, a compromise later decisions have not followed.

Three service cases show the shift from formal to substantive equality. In Secretary, Ministry of Defence v. Babita Puniya, (2020) 7 SCC 469, the Court held that women officers of the Army were entitled to permanent commission on the same terms as men, rejecting arguments about physiological limitations and troop psychology as based on sex stereotypes. Union of India v. Lt. Cdr. Annie Nagaraja, (2020) 13 SCC 1, applied the same reasoning to the Navy. Lt. Col. Nitisha v. Union of India, (2021) 15 SCC 125, went further and recognised indirect discrimination: an evaluation criterion which is neutral on its face but which applies to women a standard fixed years earlier for men produces systemic disadvantage and is unconstitutional.

Political representation is the unfinished item. The Constitution (One Hundred and Sixth Amendment) Act, 2023 reserves one third of the seats in the House of the People and the State Legislative Assemblies for women. It came into force on 16 April 2026 and is still not operative, because Article 334A conditions its operation on a delimitation exercise following the next census. A candidate who writes that the measure is "pending in Parliament" is wrong; it is enacted, in force, and inapplicable.

The statutory layer is where the protection actually operates. The Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 extends panchayati raj to Fifth Schedule areas while preserving customary law and making the gram sabha competent in matters of land alienation, minor minerals and minor forest produce. The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 recognises individual and community rights over forest land, and requires the free informed consent of the gram sabha for diversion of forest land. The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 supplies the penal protection.

Samatha v. State of Andhra Pradesh, (1997) 8 SCC 191, is the leading case on land. Government land in a Fifth Schedule area had been leased to private mining companies, the State arguing that the prohibition on transfer of tribal land bound private persons but not itself. The Court held by two to one that the word "person" in the transfer regulation includes the State, so that government land in a scheduled area cannot be leased to a non-tribal for mining, and that such transfers may be made only to tribals or to a cooperative of tribals.

Enforcement machinery, and the criticism

The machinery is worth two minutes because it distinguishes a good script. The National Commission for Scheduled Castes under Article 338, the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes under Article 338A, the National Commission for Backward Classes under Article 338B, the statutory National Commission for Women, and the special courts under the 1989 Act together form the enforcement layer. Their powers are those of a civil court in inquiries, and their recommendations are not binding, which is the standing complaint.

Conclusion. The Constitution protects backward classes, women and Scheduled Tribes by three different techniques: preferential admission and appointment for backward classes, the removal of disabling laws and the imposition of positive duties for women, and territorial self-government plus inalienability of land for Scheduled Tribes. All three rest on the same reading of Article 14, that equality of opportunity is empty where the starting positions are unequal, and all three have been enlarged by the Court more often than by the legislature. The record is uneven: Niyamgiri, Vishaka, Babita Puniya and Davinder Singh show the protections working, while the prison manuals struck down in Sukanya Shantha and the still inoperative women's reservation show how much of the guarantee remains on paper. A pluralist society is not one in which the law ignores group identity; it is one in which the law notices identity in order to remove the disadvantage attached to it, and then stops.

The necessity is structural, not incidental. A federal constitution is a contract between levels of government, and a contract with no arbiter is an invitation to whoever holds the larger army. K. C. Wheare's classic formulation is that the essence of federalism is that neither level is subordinate to the other within its own sphere, and that requires an authority external to both to police the boundary. The Indian Constitution vests that authority in the Supreme Court and the High Courts, and gives it several distinct handles.

Policing the lists: the interpretive doctrines

Pith and substance. Because the lists cannot be drawn without overlap, a law is characterised by its true nature and object, and incidental encroachment on the other legislature's field does not invalidate it. State of Bombay v. F.N. Balsara, AIR 1951 SC 318, is the standard authority: the Bombay Prohibition Act, 1949, was a State law on intoxicating liquors under the State List, and the fact that it affected the import and possession of liquor, touching the Union's field of import and export, did not make it bad, because in pith and substance it was a law on liquor. Prafulla Kumar Mukherjee v. Bank of Commerce, AIR 1947 PC 60, is the source of the doctrine in Indian law, upholding the Bengal Money Lenders Act although it affected promissory notes, a Central subject.

Colourable legislation. What cannot be done directly cannot be done indirectly. K.C. Gajapati Narayan Deo v. State of Orissa, AIR 1953 SC 375, states the rule and its limit: the doctrine has nothing to do with bona fides or mala fides, and the only question is whether the legislature had competence to enact what it in substance enacted. A candidate who describes colourable legislation as legislative dishonesty has misstated it.

Reviewing the Union's power over the States

This is where federal judicial review matters most, because the Indian Constitution arms the Union with emergency and supervisory powers that a court alone can restrain.

S.R. Bommai v. Union of India, (1994) 3 SCC 1, is the central case, and its facts are set out under question 1 of this paper, Q.P. Code 12192. For this question the holdings that matter are these. The President's satisfaction under Article 356 is not immune from judicial review; the Court may examine whether the material before the President was relevant and whether the satisfaction was formed on legally permissible grounds, though it will not substitute its own judgment on the merits. The proper test of a government's majority is a floor test, not the Governor's assessment. Until both Houses of Parliament approve the proclamation, the Assembly may be suspended but not dissolved, and if the proclamation is held invalid the Court can restore the dismissed government. Federalism was held to be a basic feature.

In Re: Article 370 of the Constitution, decided 11 December 2023, is the largest recent federal decision. A Constitution Bench upheld the abrogation of Article 370, holding that Jammu and Kashmir retained no element of internal sovereignty after accession, that Article 370 was a transitional provision, and that the President could exercise the power under Article 370(3) after the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly of the State. On the reorganisation it held the carving out of Ladakh as a Union territory valid under Article 3, and it directed that statehood be restored at the earliest and that elections to the Legislative Assembly be held by 30 September 2024. Elections were held in September and October 2024. Statehood has still not been restored, and pleas for its restoration remain pending before the Supreme Court, which as recently as October 2025 gave the Union four weeks to respond. The candidate should say so, because it is the sharpest available illustration of the limits of the umpire's writ: a direction to restore statehood is not self-enforcing.

The Governor's assent cases show the same jurisdiction under strain. In State of Tamil Nadu v. Governor of Tamil Nadu, decided 8 April 2025, a two judge Bench prescribed timelines for a Governor and for the President to act on Bills under Articles 200 and 201 and treated ten Bills as deemed to have received assent. A Presidential Reference under Article 143 followed, and in its advisory opinion of 20 November 2025 the Court held that no timelines may be judicially prescribed under Articles 200 and 201, that the concept of deemed assent is alien to the Constitution, and that these decisions are not ordinarily justiciable, while holding that a Governor may not sit on a Bill indefinitely. A candidate should present both, in order, and note the unusual feature: the executive used the advisory jurisdiction to displace a judgment.

One counter-example shows the amending power itself being policed on federal grounds. In Union of India v. Rajendra N. Shah, (2021) SCC OnLine SC 474, Part IXB of the Constitution, inserted by the Ninety-seventh Amendment to regulate cooperative societies, was struck down so far as it applied to societies within a State, because it dealt with a State List subject and had not been ratified by half the State legislatures as the proviso to Article 368(2) requires. The ratification requirement is a federal safeguard and the Court enforced it against Parliament.

For full marks, cover: the test of what makes a constitution federal; the features India and the United States share; then the differences, taken one by one with the Indian provision and the American counterpart named, and worked through a table; the case law on both sides; the "coming together" and "holding together" explanation for why the two differ; and an assessment that resists the lazy conclusion that India is simply less federal.

The test, and the two descriptions

K. C. Wheare's test is that a constitution is federal if the general and the regional governments are each, within a sphere, coordinate and independent. Applying it to India in 1951 he concluded that the Indian Constitution is quasi-federal, a unitary state with subsidiary federal features. Ambedkar's own description in the Constituent Assembly was different and more accurate: the Constitution is federal in normal times and can become unitary in an emergency, which is a design choice rather than a defect.

What the two share

Six features are common and should be listed quickly before the differences, because they are what makes the comparison a comparison at all. Both have a written constitution which is the supreme law. Both divide legislative power between a national and a regional level by an enumeration in the constitution itself. Both have a bicameral national legislature with a second chamber representing the units. Both have an independent judiciary with the power to declare legislation unconstitutional, the American power resting on Marbury v. Madison, 5 US 137 (1803), and the Indian on the express terms of Articles 13, 32, 226 and 246. Both have a rigid amending procedure requiring the participation of the units for at least some amendments. And both have a supremacy clause: Article VI, clause 2 in the United States, Articles 246 and 254 in India.

The differences, worked out

The case law, on both sides

McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 US 316 (1819), is the foundation of American federal doctrine. Maryland taxed the notes of the Second Bank of the United States, and the questions were whether Congress could incorporate a bank at all and whether a State could tax it. Marshall CJ held that the necessary and proper clause gave Congress implied powers, and that the power to tax involves the power to destroy, so a State may not tax an instrumentality of the Union. The reasoning built the doctrine of implied powers that has driven American centralisation ever since, mainly through the commerce clause.

Texas v. White, 74 US 700 (1869), decided after the Civil War, held that the Union is an indestructible Union composed of indestructible States and that the ordinance of secession was void. The first half of that phrase is true of India; the second is not, because Article 3 allows Parliament to reorganise, merge or extinguish a State, as it has done repeatedly, most recently in the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019.

S.R. Bommai v. Union of India, (1994) 3 SCC 1, is the correction. The Court held that federalism is a basic feature of the Constitution, that the States are not mere appendages of the Centre and that within their sphere they are supreme, while accepting that the fabric of federalism should not be destroyed by an unlimited use of Article 356. The two cases together, read in sequence, are the best short account of the Indian position: strong centre, real States, and a court that will police the boundary.

Mineral Area Development Authority v. Steel Authority of India, decided 25 July 2024, shows the federal principle winning in a fiscal dispute of great value. A nine judge Bench held by eight to one that royalty under the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957, is not a tax, and that the States' power to tax mineral rights and mineral bearing land under Entries 50 and 49 of the State List survives the Union law. It overruled India Cement Ltd. v. State of Tamil Nadu, (1990) 1 SCC 12. In Union of India v. Mohit Minerals, (2022) 10 SCC 700, the Court had already held that the recommendations of the GST Council are not binding on the Union or the States, describing Indian federalism as a dialogue in which the units must persuade rather than command.

The consequence is asymmetry, and this is where India is more federally sophisticated than the United States, not less. American States are formally identical. India's are not. Article 371 and Articles 371A to 371J make special provision for Maharashtra and Gujarat, Nagaland, Assam, Manipur, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, Sikkim, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Goa and Karnataka; Article 371A protects Naga customary law and land so strongly that a law of Parliament on those subjects does not apply unless the State Assembly so decides. The Sixth Schedule creates autonomous district councils with their own legislative and judicial powers in four north-eastern States. Article 239AA gives Delhi a legislature with defined exclusions. Asymmetric federalism of that kind has no American analogue, and it is the Indian answer to plural society: uniformity of status is given up in order to keep the units inside the Union.

Two qualifications must be entered against that verdict. The Union's power under Article 3 is intact and was exercised in 2019 to convert a State into two Union territories, upheld in In Re: Article 370 of the Constitution, decided 11 December 2023; the direction in that judgment to restore statehood at the earliest remains unimplemented, and pleas for its enforcement were still pending in late 2025. And the office of Governor remains an appointment held during the President's pleasure, which is why disputes over assent under Article 200 recur, most recently in State of Tamil Nadu v. Governor of Tamil Nadu, decided 8 April 2025, and in the advisory opinion on the Presidential Reference of 20 November 2025, which held that courts may not prescribe timelines under Articles 200 and 201 and that deemed assent is alien to the Constitution.

For full marks, cover: what a uniform civil code is and what Article 44 actually says; the Constituent Assembly debate in its own terms; the judicial trajectory in three distinct phases, with the facts of each leading case; the Narasu Appa Mali question of whether personal law can be tested against Part III at all; the arguments for and against; and the state legislation of 2024 to 2026, which has changed this question from a theoretical one into a live one.

What Article 44 says, and where it sits

Article 44 reads: the State shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India. Three things follow from the words. It is an endeavour, not a duty of result. It appears in Part IV, so by Article 37 it is not enforceable by any court, though it is fundamental in the governance of the country and it is the duty of the State to apply it in making laws. And its subject is the civil code, that is marriage, divorce, maintenance, adoption, guardianship, succession and inheritance; the criminal law, contract, evidence, transfer of property and procedure are already uniform.

The Constituent Assembly, in its own terms

The debate of 23 November 1948 is worth reproducing accurately because both sides in the modern argument were stated there. Mohamad Ismail Sahib moved that the right to follow personal law be guaranteed, arguing that personal law is part of the way of life of a community. Naziruddin Ahmad argued for the consent of the communities concerned and for a gradual approach. K. M. Munshi answered that the argument, taken seriously, would prevent any reform at all, and pointed out that the Hindu law was itself being reformed against similar objection. Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar argued that a uniform code would conduce to harmony.

Ambedkar's reply contained the two propositions that matter. First, that there was nothing new about a uniform civil code, since India already had a uniform criminal code and a uniform law of contract, transfer of property and procedure, so the only remaining field was marriage and succession. Second, and this is the part usually omitted, that Article 44 is only an enabling provision and no future Parliament need make its application compulsory; Parliament might well begin by making the code purely voluntary. The Special Marriage Act, 1954, is that voluntary beginning.

The political reaction is part of the answer. Parliament enacted the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, which appeared to confine a husband's liability to the iddat period and to shift the burden to relatives and the Wakf Board. In Danial Latifi v. Union of India, (2001) 7 SCC 740, a Constitution Bench upheld the Act by reading it down: section 3(1)(a) requires a "reasonable and fair provision and maintenance" to be made and paid within the iddat period, but the provision so made must be sufficient to maintain her for the rest of her life or until remarriage. The construction preserved the statute and the substance of Shah Bano together.

Mohd. Abdul Samad v. State of Telangana, decided 10 July 2024, completes that line and must be included in any current answer. The Supreme Court held that a divorced Muslim woman is entitled to maintain an application under section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, now section 144 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, and that the 1986 Act provides an additional remedy and not one in substitution. The concurring opinion emphasised that maintenance is not charity but an obligation founded on the equality of spouses.

Phase two: judicial retreat

Two decisions of the same decade pull hard in the other direction and a balanced answer must give them. In Pannalal Bansilal Pitti v. State of Andhra Pradesh, (1996) 2 SCC 498, the Court, considering a law on Hindu charitable endowments that did not extend to other communities, held that a uniform law, though highly desirable, may be counter-productive to the unity and integrity of the nation, and that in a democracy governed by rule of law gradual progressive change should be brought about. In Ahmedabad Women Action Group v. Union of India, (1997) 3 SCC 573, petitions asked the Court to declare provisions of Muslim, Hindu and Christian personal law unconstitutional. The Court declined, holding that these are matters of State policy with which the Court will not ordinarily have any concern, and that the remedy lies with the legislature.

The prior question: can personal law be tested at all?

State of Bombay v. Narasu Appa Mali, AIR 1952 Bom 84, holds that uncodified personal law is not "law in force" within Article 13, so it cannot be struck down for inconsistency with fundamental rights. Chagla CJ and Gajendragadkar J. reasoned that the framers, having provided for a uniform civil code in Article 44, must have intended personal laws to remain outside Part III until replaced.

That holding has been doubted but not overruled, and the doubt is worth marks. In Shayara Bano v. Union of India, (2017) 9 SCC 1, the majority struck down talaq-e-biddat by three to two, but reached it by different routes: two judges held the practice arbitrary and void as it was recognised by the Shariat Application Act, 1937, which is statute law, while Joseph J. held it against the tenets of the Quran itself. In Indian Young Lawyers Association v. State of Kerala, (2019) 11 SCC 1, Chandrachud J. said expressly that Narasu Appa Mali was incorrectly decided and that custom and usage must yield to constitutional morality. Until a larger Bench decides the point, personal law remains largely insulated from direct constitutional challenge, and that is the doctrinal reason so much reform has come by statute rather than by judgment.

The two Law Commission positions must both be given, because they differ. The Twenty-first Law Commission's Consultation Paper on Reform of Family Law, 31 August 2018, concluded that a uniform civil code is neither necessary nor desirable at this stage, and recommended instead that discriminatory provisions within each personal law be amended. The Twenty-second Law Commission issued a fresh public notice on 14 June 2023 seeking views afresh.

What has changed since these papers were set

Two States have now legislated, and the question is no longer hypothetical. The Uniform Civil Code of Uttarakhand Act, 2024 received the President's assent on 12 March 2024 and came into force on 27 January 2025, making Uttarakhand the first State to enact a comprehensive code; it prohibits polygamy and halala, sets a uniform law of marriage, divorce, succession and live-in relationships, requires registration of live-in relationships, and expressly exempts Scheduled Tribes. An amending ordinance followed in January 2026. Gujarat became the second State on 24 March 2026, its Assembly passing the Gujarat Uniform Civil Code Bill, 2026 after a committee chaired by Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai reported; it likewise bans polygamy, requires registration of marriage and divorce, and exempts Scheduled Tribes.

Conclusion. The Supreme Court's record on the uniform civil code divides cleanly. Where a secular statute could be applied to do justice in the individual case, it has applied it, in Shah Bano, Danial Latifi, Sarla Mudgal, John Vallamattom and Mohd. Abdul Samad. Where it has been asked to strike down personal law itself or to direct enactment of a code, it has refused, in Ahmedabad Women Action Group and in Lily Thomas, and Narasu Appa Mali still stands in the way. What the Court has done consistently is exhort, from Shah Bano in 1985 to Jose Paulo Coutinho in 2019. Article 44 is addressed to the State, not to the courts, and the initiative has now passed to State legislatures, with Uttarakhand in force since January 2025 and Gujarat legislating in March 2026. Whether that route can produce a code that is uniform throughout the territory of India, and whether it can survive challenges founded on Articles 21 and 25, are the questions this subject will be examined on for the next several years.

The Supreme Court has said so in its own words. In State of Kerala v. N.M. Thomas, (1976) 2 SCC 310, the Court held that Article 16(4) is not an exception to Article 16(1) but a facet of it, and that equality of opportunity for the unequal can only mean the enlargement of opportunities for the disadvantaged. In Sri Srinivasa Theatre v. Government of Tamil Nadu, (1992) 2 SCC 643, the Court explained that "equality before the law" is a dynamic concept with many aspects, one of which is that there shall be no privileged person or class and none above the law, and another that it is the duty of the State to bring about a more equal society.

The two limbs of Article 14

Article 14 has two expressions and they come from different traditions. "Equality before the law" is Dicey's, and it is negative in form: no person is above the law and all are equally subject to the ordinary law. "Equal protection of the laws" is taken from the Fourteenth Amendment to the American Constitution and is positive: it requires equality of treatment in like circumstances, both in the privileges conferred and in the liabilities imposed. The second limb is the one that carries the doctrine of classification, because equal protection has never meant identical treatment; it has meant that the law shall operate alike on all persons in like circumstances.

Ram Krishna Dalmia v. Justice S.R. Tendolkar, AIR 1958 SC 538, restated the law in the seven propositions that are still cited. The essential points are that a law may be constitutional though it applies to a single individual if he forms a class by himself; that there is a presumption of constitutionality and the burden lies on the person attacking the law; that the presumption may be rebutted by showing that no reasonable basis exists; that the court may take into account matters of common knowledge and the history of the times; and that good faith and knowledge of existing conditions on the part of the legislature are to be presumed.

The twin test is what all of this reduces to, and it must be stated exactly. A classification is permissible if, first, it is founded on an intelligible differentia which distinguishes persons or things grouped together from those left out, and second, that differentia has a rational nexus with the object sought to be achieved by the statute. Both limbs are necessary. A classification may be perfectly intelligible and still fail, if the ground of distinction has nothing to do with the purpose of the law.

Two decisions show the doctrine being applied to sex. In Air India v. Nergesh Meerza, (1981) 4 SCC 335, the Court struck down a regulation terminating the service of an air hostess on first pregnancy as manifestly unreasonable and arbitrary, while allowing the differential retirement age; the pregnancy rule failed the nexus limb because motherhood has no bearing on the ability to perform the duties. In Anuj Garg v. Hotel Association of India, (2008) 3 SCC 1, section 30 of the Punjab Excise Act, 1914, which prohibited the employment of women in premises where liquor was consumed, was struck down; the Court held that legislation founded on sex stereotypes must face strict scrutiny, and that protective discrimination which restricts a woman's autonomy in the name of her safety is self-defeating.

Shayara Bano v. Union of India, (2017) 9 SCC 1, took the final step by applying manifest arbitrariness to strike down legislation and not merely executive action, holding that talaq-e-biddat, recognised by section 2 of the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937, permits the capricious and whimsical breaking of a marriage without any attempt at reconciliation, and is therefore manifestly arbitrary and void under Article 14. Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India, (2018) 10 SCC 1, and Joseph Shine v. Union of India, (2018) 2 SCC 189, used the same instrument against sections 377 and 497 of the Indian Penal Code.

The relationship between the two doctrines should be stated rather than left implicit. Classification asks whether a distinction drawn by the law is defensible; arbitrariness asks whether the law has any defensible basis at all. The first is comparative and needs a comparator; the second does not. A candidate who presents them as rival tests is mistaken. Ajay Hasia settles that classification is a tool in the service of the equality principle, and Shayara Bano shows what the equality principle can do when no comparator is available.

State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh, decided 1 August 2024, is the proposition's most recent and most direct vindication. A seven judge Bench held by six to one that the Scheduled Castes are not a homogeneous class, that States may sub-classify within them to give preference to the most disadvantaged, and it overruled E.V. Chinnaiah v. State of Andhra Pradesh, (2005) 1 SCC 394, which had reasoned that the Presidential list under Article 341 created a single indivisible class. The Court required sub-classification to be founded on quantifiable data of inadequate representation, and forbade allotting the whole quota to one sub-group. The reasoning is that a uniform quota, shared equally among sub-groups of very unequal condition, is captured by the strongest of them; equal treatment inside the class defeats the purpose of the class.

The limits

Three limits should be stated so that the answer does not become an argument that all classification is required. First, the presumption of constitutionality means that mathematical precision is not demanded and a law is not bad merely because it is under-inclusive or over-inclusive at the margins; Chiranjit Lal Chowdhuri v. Union of India, AIR 1951 SC 41, upheld a law directed at a single company. Second, the burden of showing that unequals must be treated differently rests on the person asserting it, and it is a burden of evidence: M. Nagaraj v. Union of India, (2006) 8 SCC 212, requires quantifiable data, and Jarnail Singh v. Lachhmi Narain Gupta, (2018) 10 SCC 396, retained that requirement for adequacy of representation. Third, differential treatment must be proportionate; Indra Sawhney's ceiling exists because a remedy that swallows the rule is no longer a remedy, although Janhit Abhiyan v. Union of India, (2023) 5 SCC 1, has since held that the ceiling is not inviolable.

For full marks, cover: both notes, because the paper asks for both and does not offer a choice. Each is worth roughly 12.5 marks, which is about twenty minutes and a full page and a half. In (a) trace accession, Article 370, its operation, the 2019 change and the 2023 judgment, and say honestly what is still outstanding. In (b) contrast the American due process clause with the Indian text, work Gopalan and Maneka Gandhi in full, and bring the position up to Puttaswamy.

(a) Status of Jammu and Kashmir in the Indian federal scheme

Jammu and Kashmir acceded to India on 26 October 1947 by an Instrument of Accession executed by Maharaja Hari Singh in the same form as that used by other princely rulers, ceding defence, external affairs and communications and expressly reserving all other subjects. Unlike most other rulers the Maharaja did not execute a Merger Agreement, and the State went on to frame its own Constitution, which came into force on 26 January 1957.

The Supreme Court's earlier decisions had held the arrangement to be durable. In Prem Nath Kaul v. State of Jammu and Kashmir, AIR 1959 SC 749, the Court treated the State's Constituent Assembly as central to the scheme. In Sampat Prakash v. State of Jammu and Kashmir, AIR 1970 SC 1118, it held that Article 370 continued in force notwithstanding the dissolution of that Assembly in 1957, so that the power to make Presidential Orders survived. In State Bank of India v. Santosh Gupta, (2017) 2 SCC 538, the Court held that the State had no vestige of sovereignty outside the Constitution of India, and that the SARFAESI Act applied there.

On 5 and 6 August 2019 the position was changed by three instruments. Constitution Order 272 applied the whole of the Constitution of India to the State and, by an interpretive clause, read the reference to the "Constituent Assembly" in Article 370(3) as a reference to the Legislative Assembly, which was then under dissolution, so that the Governor's concurrence stood in for the State Government's. A Statutory Resolution of Parliament followed, and Constitution Order 273 declared that Article 370 ceased to be operative. The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 then divided the State into two Union territories: Jammu and Kashmir, with a legislature, and Ladakh, without one.

What has happened since is part of the answer. Assembly elections were held in September and October 2024, the first in a decade, and a government took office. Statehood has not been restored. Petitions seeking its restoration remain before the Supreme Court, which in October 2025 granted the Union four weeks to file its response and observed that the ground situation must be taken into account. Ladakh, meanwhile, has pressed for inclusion in the Sixth Schedule, which would give its councils constitutionally protected autonomy over land and custom.

The federal significance should be stated in one paragraph. Jammu and Kashmir was the Indian Constitution's largest experiment in asymmetric federalism, and its ending shows how far asymmetry in India rests on the Union's continuing consent rather than on any entrenchment. The demonstration that a State can be converted into two Union territories by ordinary legislation under Article 3, and that the conversion will be upheld, is the single most important federal event since Bommai, and it is why the remaining asymmetries, Article 371A for Nagaland, Article 371G for Mizoram, Article 239AA for Delhi and the Sixth Schedule councils, are now studied with more attention than before.

A.K. Gopalan v. State of Madras, AIR 1950 SC 27, gave the words their literal meaning. A. K. Gopalan, a communist leader, was detained under the Preventive Detention Act, 1950, and challenged both the Act and his detention. A Bench of six held that "law" in Article 21 means State-made law and not jus naturale, that the Court could not read due process into the article, and that Articles 19, 21 and 22 were mutually exclusive compartments, so that a law of preventive detention had to satisfy Article 22 alone and could not be tested against the reasonableness standard of Article 19. Fazl Ali J. dissented, holding that the articles were not exclusive and that the principles of natural justice were part of the procedure contemplated.

The doctrine that emerged is the golden triangle of Articles 14, 19 and 21, and its consequences were immediate. In Sunil Batra v. Delhi Administration, (1978) 4 SCC 494, solitary confinement and bar fetters were held subject to Article 21. In Hussainara Khatoon v. State of Bihar, (1980) 1 SCC 81, a speedy trial was held to be an essential ingredient of the fair procedure Article 21 requires, and thousands of undertrials in Bihar who had been in custody longer than the maximum sentence were ordered released. In Mithu v. State of Punjab, (1983) 2 SCC 277, section 303 of the Indian Penal Code, which prescribed a mandatory death sentence for a life convict who committed murder, was struck down because a procedure which denies the judge any discretion and the accused any hearing on sentence is not fair, just and reasonable.

The remaining limits should be stated. Article 22(3) still withdraws the safeguards of clauses (1) and (2) from a person detained under a preventive detention law, and Article 22(4) then permits detention for up to three months without reference to an Advisory Board. Article 359 permits suspension of the right to move courts for enforcement of rights other than Articles 20 and 21 during an emergency, the exception for Article 21 having been introduced by the Forty-fourth Amendment, 1978, precisely to prevent a second ADM Jabalpur. The clearest way to end this note is with that fact: the constitutional amendment which followed the Emergency was written to make the majority holding in ADM Jabalpur impossible to repeat, and thirty nine years later the Court overruled it as well.