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Constitutionalism Pluralism and Federalism
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LLM · Group 1 Constitutional and Administrative Law
2015 Examination
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LLM Group 1 Constitutional and Administrative Law Constitutionalism Pluralism and Federalism 2015 Question Paper with Solutions
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First published on munotes.in on 12 August 2026.
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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 2015 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 2015 examination, in the order it was set.
MarksPage
The Paper as Set
The questions in this volume are the questions asked at the 2015 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 · 8 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. Code 12192, printer line BB-Con. 2996-15
any four of eight, all carrying equal marks · 100 Marks
1.The object of inserting the word "Secularism" in the Preamble is to spell out expressely the high ideas of socialism, secularism and the integrity of the nation - Discuss.[25]
Answer
For full marks, cover: exactly what the Forty-second Amendment altered in the Preamble and in what words; whether the amendment created secularism or declared it; the Preamble's status as an aid to construction and as an object of the amending power; secularism worked through Bommai and the cases before and after it; socialism worked through the Directive Principles and the property cases; integrity as an answer to secession; and the standing criticism that the words were inserted during the Emergency.
What the amendment actually did
The Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976, section 2, made two changes to the Preamble and no others. "SOVEREIGN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC" became "SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC", and "unity of the Nation" became "unity and integrity of the Nation". The question groups all three ideas, socialism, secularism and integrity, and that grouping is correct, because one section inserted all three at the same moment.
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.
Secularism: declared, not created
The strongest argument that the amendment declared rather than created is that the Supreme Court had already found secularism in the Constitution before 1976. Kesavananda itself lists the secular character of the Constitution among the basic features, three years before the word appeared in the Preamble. The materials the Court relied on were Articles 25 to 28, Articles 14, 15 and 16, and Articles 29 and 30, and none of those was touched by the Forty-second Amendment.
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.
What Bommai settled about content is as important as what it settled about Article 356. The judgments hold that the State has no religion of its own, that religion is a matter of individual faith and cannot be mixed with secular activity regulated by the State, and that equal treatment of every faith, rather than hostility to faith, is what the Indian model means. That last point separates the Indian conception from the French one: the Constitution does not require the State to keep away from religion; it requires the State to keep an equal distance from every religion.
M. Ismail Faruqui v. Union of India, (1994) 6 SCC 360, decided the same year on the acquisition of land at Ayodhya, put the same idea in a single sentence that is worth carrying into the hall: secularism, as practised under the Indian Constitution, is a positive concept of equal treatment of all religions, and the State's protection extends to every faith equally.
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.
The most recent authority, and the one that answers the question directly, is Dr. Balram Singh v. Union of India, decided 25 November 2024. Petitions asked the Supreme Court to strike the words "socialist" and "secular" out of the Preamble, arguing that the Constituent Assembly had deliberately left them out and that the Preamble, bearing the date 26 November 1949, could not be amended without falsifying that date. The Court dismissed the petitions. It held that the amending power under Article 368 extends to the Preamble, that the date of adoption does not freeze its text, and that in the Indian context "socialist" denotes a welfare State committed to equality of opportunity rather than any particular economic doctrine, while "secular" expresses the equal treatment of all faiths that the Constitution already required. That is a judicial endorsement of exactly the proposition the question puts: the words spell out expressly what the document already contained.
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.
The most important recent decision confines the socialist reading of property. In Property Owners Association v. State of Maharashtra, decided 5 November 2024, a nine judge Bench held that not every privately owned resource is a "material resource of the community" under Article 39(b), overruling the wide view taken in the minority opinion of Krishna Iyer J. in State of Karnataka v. Ranganatha Reddy, (1977) 4 SCC 471, which Sanjeev Coke Manufacturing Co. v. Bharat Coking Coal Ltd., (1983) 1 SCC 147, had adopted. Whether a resource qualifies depends on its nature, scarcity and the consequences of its concentration. The word "socialist" in the Preamble did not save the wider construction, which is the plainest available proof that the insertion declared an aspiration and did not transfer property.
Integrity: the answer to secession
"Integrity" is the least discussed of the three and the easiest to justify. "Unity" can be read as a description of a shared polity; "integrity" is territorial and points at secession. The word arrives in a constitutional line that begins with the Constitution (Sixteenth Amendment) Act, 1963, which inserted "the sovereignty and integrity of India" as a ground of restriction in Article 19(2), (3) and (4) and added it to the oaths in the Third Schedule.
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.
The other standing criticism is practical. A Preamble that names secularism has not by itself prevented communal violence, targeted riots or the two-decade delay in Bommai's promise of accountability; nor has "socialist" prevented widening inequality. The right answer to that is the one Bommai gives: a Preamble word is a standard of review, not a self-executing remedy. It decides cases when it is invoked, and it is invoked only when someone comes to court.
Conclusion. The claim in the question is sound but needs to be stated with precision. The Forty-second Amendment did not make India secular, socialist or territorially indivisible; the Constitution was already all three by the reading the Supreme Court had given it in Kesavananda three years earlier. What section 2 of that Act did was to put three commitments beyond argument in the document's opening sentence, so that they could be used as express standards rather than as inferences. Secularism has done the most with that status, decisively in Bommai and most recently in Balram Singh; integrity has quietly done its work through Article 19(2) and Article 356; socialism has done the least, and Property Owners Association has now marked its outer limit. The object stated in the question was achieved, but the value of the achievement lies in the Court's willingness to enforce the words, not in their insertion.
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