LLM Group 1 Constitutional and Administrative Law Constitutionalism Pluralism and Federalism 2019 Question Paper with Solutions

For full marks, cover: what Article 44 asks for and, in particular, what the word uniform would actually require, which is the question most scripts never reach; the leading decisions with their facts; Goa, which is the only working Indian example and therefore the best evidence available; the two State codes of 2024 to 2026 and whether they satisfy Article 44 or defeat it; and a conclusion which takes a position.

What Article 44 asks for

Article 44 provides that the State shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India. It is a Directive Principle, unenforceable by Article 37 but fundamental in governance. The field it covers is marriage, divorce, maintenance, guardianship, adoption, succession and inheritance; criminal law, contract, evidence, property transfer and procedure are already common to all communities.

The leading decisions

Mohd. Ahmed Khan v. Shah Bano Begum, (1985) 2 SCC 556. Shah Bano, aged 62, was divorced after forty three years of marriage and claimed maintenance under section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure; her husband pleaded discharge under Muslim personal law on payment of mahr and iddat maintenance. A Constitution Bench held that section 125 is a secular provision cutting across personal law and applies to a divorced Muslim woman unable to maintain herself. Chandrachud CJ observed that Article 44 has remained a dead letter. Parliament responded with the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986.

Danial Latifi v. Union of India, (2001) 7 SCC 740, upheld that Act by reading section 3(1)(a) to require a reasonable and fair provision made and paid within the iddat but sufficient to maintain her for life or until remarriage. Mohd. Abdul Samad v. State of Telangana, decided 10 July 2024, held that section 125, now section 144 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, remains available to a divorced Muslim woman, the 1986 Act being an additional remedy.

Goa: the only working example

Jose Paulo Coutinho v. Maria Luiza Valentina Pereira, (2019) 20 SCC 190, decided a succession dispute governed by the Portuguese Civil Code of 1867 as continued in Goa after 1961, and described Goa as a shining example of an Indian State which has a uniform civil code applicable to all, regardless of religion, except while protecting certain limited rights.

The qualification in that sentence repays attention, because Goa's code is less uniform than the phrase suggests, and a candidate who knows this is writing at a higher level. It provides for community property in marriage, under which spouses hold assets jointly and each is entitled to half on divorce or death, which is a genuine advance on the rest of India. But the Code of Usages and Customs of Gentile Hindus of Goa, 1880, permits a Hindu man limited bigamy in defined circumstances, and Catholic marriages solemnised in church are governed by canon law for annulment purposes. Goa therefore demonstrates two things at once: that a common civil code can work in an Indian State without communal conflict, and that even the working example carries exceptions.

Three constitutional questions arise and each should be named. Competence is not in doubt: Entry 5 of the Concurrent List covers marriage, divorce, adoption, succession and joint family, subject to Article 254. Privacy is doubtful: compulsory registration of live-in relationships, with notice and inquiry, is challenged as offending the decisional autonomy recognised in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, (2017) 10 SCC 1, and petitions including one by Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind are pending, the Supreme Court having declined an interim stay in February 2025 while issuing notice. And uniformity is the deepest problem: a code enacted State by State, exempting Scheduled Tribes in each State, is by definition not uniform throughout the territory of India, which is precisely what Article 44 asks for. On the strictest reading the State route achieves the opposite of the constitutional object, replacing four personal-law systems with a patchwork that varies by State as well.

Conclusion

The Law Commission has answered twice and differently. The Twenty-first Law Commission's Consultation Paper of 31 August 2018 concluded that a uniform civil code is neither necessary nor desirable at this stage, recommending instead that the discriminatory provisions within each personal law be amended, and observing that cultural diversity cannot be compromised to the point where the urge for uniformity itself becomes a threat. The Twenty-second Law Commission issued a fresh public notice on 14 June 2023 seeking views again.

One further point of substance belongs here, because it is what the piecemeal route has actually delivered. Without any code, Indian law now gives a divorced Muslim woman maintenance for life under Danial Latifi and access to the general criminal procedure under Abdul Samad; a Hindu daughter coparcenary rights by birth under Vineeta Sharma v. Rakesh Sharma, (2020) 9 SCC 1; every woman a remedy against domestic violence under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, and against workplace harassment under the Act of 2013; and every community a common law prohibiting child marriage under the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006. The real question for a candidate is therefore not whether uniformity is desirable in the abstract but whether the marginal gain from a code, over continued targeted reform of each personal law, is worth its political cost.

For full marks, cover: the two errors Article 14 forbids and the fact that the quotation names the less obvious one; the classification doctrine as the remedy for the first error; the substantive equality doctrine as the remedy for the second; the tests, with the cases that produced them; the remedies the Constitution actually provides for treating unequals as equals; and the limits, so that the answer does not read as an argument that all differentiation is required.

The two errors, and the remedy for each

Article 14 guarantees equality before the law and the equal protection of the laws, and it is violated in two distinct ways. The first error is treating equals as unequals, that is drawing a distinction which cannot be justified. The second error, named in the quotation, is treating unequals as equals, that is applying an identical rule to people whose positions are so different that the rule cannot operate on them alike.

Ram Krishna Dalmia v. Justice S.R. Tendolkar, AIR 1958 SC 538, codified the law in seven propositions, of which the operative ones are the presumption of constitutionality, the burden on the challenger, that a law may be valid though it applies to one person forming a class by himself, and that the court may look at matters of common knowledge and the history of the times.

The test has two limbs and both must be met: an intelligible differentia distinguishing the group from those left out, and a rational nexus between that differentia and the object of the statute. Subramanian Swamy v. Director, CBI, (2014) 8 SCC 682, is the model of the second limb failing: section 6A of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act required central approval before investigating an officer of joint secretary rank or above for corruption, and it was struck down because rank has no rational relation to whether a corruption allegation should be investigated, and the provision defeated the object of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The remedies the Constitution provides

The proposition in the question generates four distinct remedies and setting them out separately is what earns a high mark.

Preference. Reservation in admissions and appointments under Articles 15(4), 15(5), 16(4) and 16(4A). Indra Sawhney v. Union of India, 1992 Supp (3) SCC 217, upheld 27 per cent for Other Backward Classes, required exclusion of the creamy layer, set the 50 per cent ceiling and held that backwardness is social and educational rather than merely economic. M. Nagaraj v. Union of India, (2006) 8 SCC 212, requires quantifiable data for reservation in promotion, and Jarnail Singh v. Lachhmi Narain Gupta, (2018) 10 SCC 396, removed the need to prove backwardness for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes while keeping the creamy layer.

Attention to effects. Lt. Col. Nitisha v. Union of India, (2021) 15 SCC 125, is the strongest case for the proposition because no special provision was in issue. Women officers granted permanent commission were assessed against benchmarks derived from standards applied to male officers years earlier. The criterion was neutral and applied identically to all. The Court held this to be indirect discrimination and required the enquiry to examine the effects of a rule and not only its terms.

The limits

Three limits keep the doctrine honest, and an answer without them is incomplete.

Not every differential treatment of unequals is a remedy. Anuj Garg v. Hotel Association of India, (2008) 3 SCC 1, struck down section 30 of the Punjab Excise Act, 1914, which prohibited the employment of women where liquor was consumed, holding that legislation resting on sex stereotypes attracts strict scrutiny and that protection which restricts autonomy in the name of safety is self-defeating. The test is whether the measure enlarges the person's choices or narrows them.

The arbitrariness route

E.P. Royappa v. State of Tamil Nadu, (1974) 4 SCC 3, held that equality and arbitrariness are sworn enemies and that an arbitrary act is by that fact unequal. Ajay Hasia v. Khalid Mujib Sehravardi, (1981) 1 SCC 722, held that classification is a judicial formula for detecting arbitrariness and not a substitute for the equality principle. Shayara Bano v. Union of India, (2017) 9 SCC 1, applied manifest arbitrariness to strike down a statutory recognition of talaq-e-biddat, and Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India, (2018) 10 SCC 1, and Joseph Shine v. Union of India, (2018) 2 SCC 189, used it against sections 377 and 497 of the Indian Penal Code. The practical value of this route is that it works where there is no comparator, which is exactly the situation in most cases about dignity.

The proposition tested against a decided case

An abstract statement of substantive equality is worth less than one worked example, and Sukanya Shantha v. Union of India, decided 3 October 2024, is the best available.

The holding. The Supreme Court struck the impugned provisions down as violating Articles 14, 15, 17, 21 and 23, holding that caste-based division of labour in prisons is a continuation of untouchability, that the reference to habitual offenders stigmatising denotified tribes is unconstitutional, and that dignity under Article 21 extends inside the prison gate. Every State and Union territory was directed to revise its manual within three months, and the Court took the District Legal Services Authorities into the supervision of compliance.

Why it belongs in this answer. It shows that the two errors Article 14 forbids are not alternatives in practice but are frequently found in the same rule; and it shows that a constitutional prohibition of 1950 was still being contradicted by subordinate legislation in 2024, which is the strongest available evidence that substantive equality is a live requirement and not an academic gloss on Article 14.

For full marks, cover: why a federation cannot work without an umpire; the specifically federal heads of jurisdiction, above all Article 131, which most scripts omit; the interpretive doctrines used to police the lists, each with a case; the review of Union power over States; the two recent fiscal decisions which are the best modern illustrations; and the limits of the umpire's role.

Why a federation needs an umpire

In a unitary state a court asks whether a law violates rights; in a federation it must also ask which legislature was competent to make it. That second question exists only because power is divided, and it cannot be answered by either of the two contending governments. K. C. Wheare's formulation is that the federal principle requires the general and regional governments each to be coordinate and independent within a sphere, and a boundary between two coordinate authorities is enforceable only by a third.

Article 131 is the specifically federal head and deserves a paragraph. It gives the Supreme Court exclusive original jurisdiction in a dispute between the Union and one or more States, or between States, if and in so far as the dispute involves a question, whether of law or fact, on which the existence or extent of a legal right depends. It is not a general grievance jurisdiction: the dispute must be about a legal right, and the party must be the Union or a State as such and not a private litigant. State of West Bengal v. Union of India, AIR 1963 SC 1241, was brought under it, as was State of Karnataka v. Union of India, (1977) 4 SCC 608. Article 143 supplies the advisory jurisdiction, used for federal questions from Berubari Union, In re, AIR 1960 SC 845, to the Presidential Reference decided on 20 November 2025. Articles 32, 226 and 136 supply the ordinary remedies, and Article 13 makes the whole enforceable.

Territorial nexus and the residue. Article 245(2) protects a Union law from challenge for extraterritorial operation, and the nexus doctrine permits a State law to reach an out-of-State object where the connection is real. Article 248 and Entry 97 of the Union List place the residue with the Union, which is the reverse of the American Tenth Amendment and of section 51 of the Australian Constitution.

Reviewing the Union's power over the States

S.R. Bommai v. Union of India, (1994) 3 SCC 1, is the central case. After the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992 the Union dismissed three State governments under Article 356, having earlier dismissed the Karnataka government on a claim of lost majority. Nine judges held that federalism is a basic feature; that the President's satisfaction is justiciable and the material examinable, though the Court will not substitute its own judgment on the merits; that a government's majority must be tested on the floor of the House; that until both Houses of Parliament approve the proclamation the Assembly may be suspended but not dissolved; and that an invalid proclamation may be set aside and the dismissed government restored. The effect is measurable: Article 356 was used more than a hundred times before 1994 and comparatively rarely afterwards.

The two decisions that show the umpire at its most effective

Mineral Area Development Authority v. Steel Authority of India, decided 25 July 2024, is the most consequential federal fiscal judgment in decades. Nine judges held by eight to one that royalty under the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957, is not a tax but consideration arising from the mining lease, so that the power of State legislatures to tax mineral rights under Entry 50 and mineral bearing land under Entry 49 of the State List is not exhausted by the Union statute. It overruled the seven judge decision in India Cement Ltd. v. State of Tamil Nadu, (1990) 1 SCC 12, and limited recovery of past dues to transactions from 1 April 2005, waiving interest and penalty and staggering payment from 1 April 2026. A misallocation of taxing power that had stood for thirty years was corrected by a court.

Union of India v. Mohit Minerals, (2022) 10 SCC 700, held that the recommendations of the Goods and Services Tax Council are persuasive and not binding, because both the Union and the States have simultaneous power under Article 246A, and described Indian federalism as a dialogue in which the units are required to persuade rather than command.

A fifth limit appeared in 2025 and should be given. In State of Tamil Nadu v. Governor of Tamil Nadu, decided 8 April 2025, the Court prescribed timelines for the Governor and the President under Articles 200 and 201 and deemed ten Bills assented. On the Presidential Reference under Article 143 the Court held on 20 November 2025 that no such timelines may be judicially prescribed and that deemed assent is alien to the Constitution, while holding that a Governor may not sit on a Bill indefinitely. The umpire had reached for a remedy the Constitution does not contain, and its own advisory opinion withdrew it.

For full marks, cover: the historical fact that the two texts were drafted in the same years; the mechanism by which international law enters Indian law, since "incorporates" is the operative word; the correspondence article by article; the cases in which the correspondence has been used to decide something; the departures, which are what make this a discussion rather than a list; and an assessment.

The two texts were contemporaneous

The Constituent Assembly sat from December 1946 to November 1949; the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted on 10 December 1948, in the middle of that period. India was represented on the United Nations Commission on Human Rights by Hansa Mehta, credited with changing the opening words of Article 1 of the Declaration from "all men" to "all human beings", and India voted for the Declaration. The Advisory Committee on Fundamental Rights under Sardar Patel, with a sub-committee under J. B. Kripalani, was drafting Part III at the same time. The conformity is therefore contemporaneous and deliberate rather than a later borrowing.

Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan, (1997) 6 SCC 241. After the gang rape of Bhanwari Devi and the acquittal of the accused, women's organisations sought a legal framework. In the absence of legislation the Court drew binding guidelines from the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women; Parliament legislated sixteen years later.

Chairman, Railway Board v. Chandrima Das, (2000) 2 SCC 465. A Bangladeshi national was raped by railway employees at a yatri niwas. The Court awarded compensation, holding that Article 21 protects "persons" and not only citizens, and relying on the Declaration for the proposition that its rights attach to every human being.

K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, (2017) 10 SCC 1, recognised privacy under Article 21, drawing on Article 12 of the Declaration and Article 17 of the Covenant, and overruled A.D.M. Jabalpur v. Shivakant Shukla, (1976) 2 SCC 521. National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India, (2014) 5 SCC 438, recognised transgender persons as a third gender relying on the Covenant and the Yogyakarta Principles. Vellore Citizens Welfare Forum v. Union of India, (1996) 5 SCC 647, held the precautionary principle and polluter pays to be customary international law deemed incorporated into domestic law.

Asylum. Article 14 of the Declaration gives everyone the right to seek and enjoy asylum. India is not a party to the Refugee Convention of 1951 or its Protocol and has no refugee statute; refugees fall under the Foreigners Act, 1946. In Mohammad Salimullah v. Union of India, (2021) SCC OnLine SC 296, the Court declined to restrain the deportation of Rohingya detainees, holding that the right not to be deported is ancillary to the right to reside under Article 19(1)(e), which is confined to citizens.

Change of religion. Article 18 of the Declaration expressly includes freedom to change one's religion. Article 25 guarantees the right to propagate, and Rev. Stainislaus v. State of Madhya Pradesh, (1977) 1 SCC 677, held that propagation does not include a right to convert another, upholding State laws against conversion by force, fraud or allurement.

The Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, created the National Human Rights Commission, State Human Rights Commissions and Human Rights Courts. Section 2(1)(d) defines human rights as the rights relating to life, liberty, equality and dignity guaranteed by the Constitution or embodied in the International Covenants and enforceable by courts in India, which is an express statutory link between Part III and the Covenants of 1966.

Its functions under section 12 are to inquire into a violation or into negligence in preventing a violation by a public servant, on a petition or suo motu; to intervene in proceedings involving an allegation of violation; to visit jails and places of detention; to review the safeguards provided by the Constitution and by law; to study treaties and other international instruments and make recommendations for their effective implementation; and to undertake research and spread human rights literacy.

Conclusion. The proposition in the question is correct and needs three qualifications. The conformity is structural and contemporaneous, not a later borrowing: Part III tracks the Declaration's civil and political articles closely enough to be tabulated, and India was represented in the drafting. The incorporation is indirect, because India is dualist, so the Declaration operates through Article 51(c), through Article 253 legislation and above all as an aid to construction under the rule in Gramophone Company and Vishaka. And the conformity is incomplete by choice: India withdrew property from Part III, recognises no right to marry after Supriyo, has no refugee law, and reads propagation narrowly, while going beyond the Declaration on untouchability and compensatory discrimination. What the Indian Constitution took from 1948 was not a list of rights but a method, and what it added was a court willing to enforce the list against the State that wrote it.

Article 1 states the Indian position in its first words: India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States. Ambedkar explained the choice of "Union" over "Federation" in the Constituent Assembly: the Indian federation is not the result of an agreement between the units, and no unit has a right to secede from it. Both halves of that sentence matter, and they explain most of what follows.

The federal features

A written and supreme Constitution. The Constitution is a single written document, and Article 245 subjects the legislative power of both Parliament and the State legislatures to it, while Article 13 makes any inconsistent law void. Neither level can enlarge its own competence by ordinary legislation.

A division of legislative power. Article 246 with the Seventh Schedule distributes subjects between the Union List, numbered to 97 and now carrying 98 subjects, the State List, numbered to 66 and now carrying 59, and the Concurrent List, numbered to 47 and now carrying 52, and Article 246A now gives both levels simultaneous power over goods and services tax. The lists are exhaustive and detailed, which is itself a federal feature: a distribution that is precise is harder to erode by interpretation.

Rigidity in the federal provisions. Under the proviso to Article 368(2), any amendment affecting the election of the President, the extent of Union or State executive power, the distribution of legislative powers, the representation of States in Parliament, the Union judiciary or the High Courts requires ratification by not less than half the State legislatures. That requirement was enforced against Parliament in Union of India v. Rajendra N. Shah, (2021) SCC OnLine SC 474, which struck down Part IXB of the Constitution so far as it applied to cooperative societies within a State.

An independent judiciary and a federal umpire. Articles 124 to 147 and 214 to 231 secure judicial independence through fixed tenure, salaries charged on the Consolidated Fund and a difficult removal procedure. Article 131 gives the Supreme Court exclusive original jurisdiction over disputes between the Union and a State or between States where the existence or extent of a legal right is in question.

The residuary power lies with the Union, under Article 248 and Entry 97 of the Union List, which is the reverse of the American and Australian positions.

Article 3 permits Parliament to form new States and to alter the areas, boundaries or names of existing States, the State legislature's views being merely ascertained and not binding. A State in India is therefore not indestructible, and the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, is the most recent proof.

The Governor is appointed by the President and holds office during pleasure, Articles 155 and 156, and may reserve a Bill for the President under Article 200.

Emergency provisions. Under Article 352, during a Proclamation of Emergency, Parliament may legislate on any State subject under Article 250 and the Union may give any direction it thinks fit. Under Article 356 the President may assume the functions of a State government. Under Article 360 a Financial Emergency permits directions on the salaries of State officers.

Federalism as a basic feature, and what has followed

S.R. Bommai is the decisive authority and its holdings should be given: the President's satisfaction under Article 356 is justiciable; a government's majority is to be tested on the floor of the House; the Assembly may not be dissolved before both Houses of Parliament approve the proclamation; and federalism and secularism are both basic features. Article 356 was used more than a hundred times before 1994 and comparatively rarely afterwards.

Three later decisions show the federal principle operating. Union of India v. Mohit Minerals, (2022) 10 SCC 700, held the recommendations of the Goods and Services Tax Council persuasive and not binding, since both levels have simultaneous power under Article 246A, and described Indian federalism as a dialogue. Mineral Area Development Authority v. Steel Authority of India, decided 25 July 2024, held by eight to one in a Bench of nine 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 survives, overruling India Cement Ltd. v. State of Tamil Nadu, (1990) 1 SCC 12. Rajendra N. Shah enforced the ratification proviso against Parliament.

Conclusion. The Indian Constitution has every essential federal feature: it is written and supreme, it divides legislative, executive and fiscal power by an exhaustive schedule, it protects the federal provisions by a ratification requirement, it gives the units a chamber with a real veto under Article 249, it maintains an independent judiciary with an exclusive federal jurisdiction under Article 131, and it makes asymmetric provision for units that need it. It also has features no classical federation contains: a Union residue, alterable State boundaries, a nominated Governor, emergency provisions that can make the system unitary, and a power to direct the States. The right description is neither "federal" nor "quasi-federal" but holding-together federalism: a system designed to keep a plural and freshly partitioned country together, in which the text favours the Union and the federal principle is protected mainly by the basic structure doctrine and by a Court willing to apply it. That is why Bommai matters more to Indian federalism than any provision of the Seventh Schedule.

The textual proof of that is the set of things the Indian State must do and the other two models forbid. Article 17 abolishes untouchability, which is a religiously sanctioned practice. Article 25(2)(b) allows the State to throw open Hindu religious institutions of a public character to all classes and sections of Hindus. Article 25(2)(a) allows regulation of secular activity associated with religious practice. Article 30(2) forbids discrimination against minority institutions in the grant of aid, which assumes the State funds them. A wall of separation would prohibit temple entry legislation and the funding of minority schools alike.

Group one: what secularism means

Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala, (1973) 4 SCC 225, listed the secular character of the Constitution among its basic features three years before the Forty-second Amendment inserted the word into the Preamble, which shows that the amendment declared rather than created.

M. Ismail Faruqui v. Union of India, (1994) 6 SCC 360, decided the same year on the acquisition of land at Ayodhya, supplies the formula: secularism under the Indian Constitution is a positive concept of equal treatment of all religions, and the State's protection extends equally to every faith. Aruna Roy v. Union of India, (2002) 7 SCC 368, upholding the National Curriculum Framework's provision for value education, added that secularism does not require hostility to religion and that the study of religions is not religious instruction, which Article 28 forbids only in wholly State-funded institutions.

Dr. Balram Singh v. Union of India, decided 25 November 2024, disposed of a challenge to the words "socialist" and "secular" in the Preamble. The Court held that the amending power extends to the Preamble, that the date 26 November 1949 does not freeze its text, and that "secular" expresses the equal treatment of all faiths that the Constitution already required.

Bijoe Emmanuel v. State of Kerala, (1987) 3 SCC 615, protects the dissenting believer. Three children of Jehovah's Witnesses stood respectfully during the national anthem but did not sing, and were expelled. The Court restored them, holding that no law compelled singing and that Article 25 protected their belief. Indian Young Lawyers Association v. State of Kerala, (2019) 11 SCC 1, the Sabarimala decision, held by four to one that the exclusion of women of menstruating age was not an essential religious practice and offended Articles 15 and 25, and introduced constitutional morality as the standard; review petitions produced a reference of larger questions to a nine judge Bench in Kantaru Rajeevaru v. Indian Young Lawyers Association, (2020) 2 SCC 1, which is still pending, so the position must be stated as unsettled.

Anjum Kadari v. Union of India, decided 5 November 2024, is the fullest recent statement of positive secularism. The Allahabad High Court had struck down the Uttar Pradesh Board of Madarsa Education Act, 2004, as violating secularism. The Supreme Court set that aside and upheld the Act, holding that a statute may be struck down only for breach of Part III or want of legislative competence, that regulating the standard of education in madarsas falls within Entry 25 of the Concurrent List, and that the State's interest in students attaining competence to participate in society is consistent with Article 30. Only the provisions conferring Fazil and Kamil degrees were severed as conflicting with the University Grants Commission Act, 1956. Its importance for this question is the proposition that the Indian State does not violate secularism by regulating religious education; it would violate secularism by abolishing it.

Critical assessment

Four criticisms should be made and each answered or conceded.

The Preamble does not enforce itself. Bommai took two decades to arrive after the practice it condemned had begun, and a declaration of secularism has not prevented communal violence. The honest answer is that a Preamble word is a standard of review and not a remedy, and it operates only when someone comes to court.

Conclusion. Secularism in the Indian Constitution is not separation but principled distance, and the cases show what that means in practice. Kesavananda and Bommai made it a basic feature and made a State government's departure from it a ground for the gravest constitutional action. Shirur Mutt and Durgah Committee built the instrument by which courts decide what religion protects, and Sabarimala exposed its difficulty, leaving a nine judge reference pending. Bijoe Emmanuel showed that the doctrine protects a handful of children against a popular practice. Bukhari and Abhiram Singh kept religion out of the election. And in November 2024 the Court both widened who may claim minority educational rights in AMU v. Naresh Agarwal and confirmed in Anjum Kadari that claiming them does not exempt an institution from meeting educational standards. Taken together the cases describe a State which is neither religious nor irreligious, which funds and regulates religious institutions in equal measure, and whose secularism is enforced case by case rather than proclaimed once.

Article 25(2) preserves State power to regulate secular activity associated with religious practice, and to provide for social welfare and reform or the throwing open of Hindu religious institutions of a public character to all classes of Hindus. Article 26 gives every religious denomination the right to establish and maintain institutions for religious purposes, to manage its own affairs in matters of religion, to own property and to administer it in accordance with law. Article 27 forbids compelling payment of taxes for the promotion of a religion. Article 28 restricts religious instruction in State-funded institutions.

The critical point is that this doctrine requires a secular court to decide what a religion holds essential to itself, which is precisely the enquiry a secular State is supposed to avoid. The criticism was made by Chandrachud J. in Indian Young Lawyers Association v. State of Kerala, (2019) 11 SCC 1, who proposed that the enquiry should instead be whether the practice offends constitutional morality, and by the review order in Kantaru Rajeevaru v. Indian Young Lawyers Association, (2020) 2 SCC 1, which referred larger questions to a nine judge Bench that has not yet decided them. Until it does, the law on the most fundamental question in this area is unsettled, and a candidate should say so rather than state the doctrine as settled.

Freedom of the press: no separate provision

The Constitution contains no separate guarantee for the press. The Constituent Assembly considered one and did not include it, and Ambedkar explained that the press has no special rights not enjoyed by every citizen: the freedom of the press is the freedom of expression of the individuals who run it. The consequence is that the press's rights are those of Article 19(1)(a), subject to the eight grounds of restriction in Article 19(2), and every advance has had to be argued from that article.

Romesh Thappar v. State of Madras, AIR 1950 SC 124, is the first and the most important. The Madras Government banned the circulation of the journal Cross Roads under the Madras Maintenance of Public Order Act, 1949. The Court struck the ban down: the Act was authorised for public safety and public order, which were not then among the grounds in Article 19(2), and the Court held that unless a restriction is directed to the security of the State, it cannot stand. Brij Bhushan v. State of Delhi, AIR 1950 SC 129, decided the same day, struck down pre-censorship imposed on the Organiser. Parliament responded with the First Amendment, 1951, which added public order, friendly relations with foreign States and incitement to an offence to Article 19(2) and inserted the word "reasonable" before "restrictions".

The press: modern restrictions and the critical assessment

Shreya Singhal v. Union of India, (2015) 5 SCC 1, struck down section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, for vagueness and overbreadth, distinguishing discussion and advocacy, which are protected, from incitement, which alone may be restricted, and read down section 79 so that intermediaries need act only on a court order or a government direction.

Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India, (2020) 3 SCC 637, held that the freedom to practise a profession through the internet is protected by Article 19(1)(g), that an indefinite suspension of internet services is impermissible, that every such order must be published so that it can be challenged, and that periodic review is required. Madhyamam Broadcasting Ltd. v. Union of India, decided 5 April 2023, restored the broadcasting licence of MediaOne, which had been revoked on a security clearance produced to the court in a sealed cover, holding that sealed cover procedure is contrary to natural justice and open justice and that a public interest immunity claim must itself be tested.

The critical assessment must name the countervailing facts. Criminal defamation was upheld in Subramanian Swamy v. Union of India, (2016) 7 SCC 221, so a journalist still faces the prospect of imprisonment for a publication. Sedition under section 124A of the Indian Penal Code was kept in abeyance by the order in S.G. Vombatkere v. Union of India of 11 May 2022, and the offence reappears in altered form as section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, in force from 1 July 2024, whose breadth has been criticised. Prosecutions of journalists under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, where bail is difficult, and repeated internet shutdowns notwithstanding Anuradha Bhasin, are the two most cited practical limitations. The pattern is that the doctrine is generous and the day-to-day practice is not, and the gap is filled by process: the cost, delay and custody involved in defending a prosecution are themselves the restraint.

Conclusion. The freedom of religion in India is more extensive than in a separationist State, because it includes a right to propagate and to run educational institutions with State aid, and it is more vulnerable, because its scope is fixed by a judge-made essential practices test whose foundations have been referred to a nine judge Bench that has not yet ruled. The freedom of the press is not mentioned in the Constitution at all and was built out of Article 19(1)(a) by a series of decisions, from Romesh Thappar in 1950 to Anuradha Bhasin and Madhyamam Broadcasting, which together establish that the State may not restrict circulation, may not use sealed covers, and may not suspend the internet indefinitely. Examined critically, both freedoms are strong in doctrine and weaker in practice: religion because the governing test is unsettled and unevenly applied across communities, and the press because criminal defamation, the successor to sedition and the Unlawful Activities Act make the process itself a punishment. In both cases the constitutional text is not the problem, and reform lies in procedure rather than in principle.

Article I declares genocide, whether committed in peace or in war, a crime under international law which the parties undertake to prevent and to punish. The duty to prevent is separate from the duty to punish and has become the operative obligation in litigation.

Article II defines genocide as any of five acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Two features of the definition decide most cases. The protected groups are four and exhaustive; political groups and social classes were excluded in drafting, largely at Soviet insistence, and that exclusion is the Convention's most criticised feature. And the mental element is a special intent, dolus specialis, to destroy the group as such, which is why mass atrocity is far more often a crime against humanity than genocide.

Four decisions supply the law. The advisory opinion on Reservations to the Convention on Genocide, 1951, held the principles underlying the Convention to be binding on States even without conventional obligation and introduced the compatibility test for reservations. Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro, 2007, held that the massacre at Srebrenica in July 1995 was genocide, that Serbia had not committed it but had violated its duty to prevent it and had failed to cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The Gambia v. Myanmar, preliminary objections, 22 July 2022, held that any State party may invoke another's responsibility for breach of obligations erga omnes partes, without showing a special interest. South Africa v. Israel, in orders of 26 January, 28 March and 24 May 2024, indicated provisional measures on the footing that the rights asserted were plausible. On the criminal side, Prosecutor v. Akayesu, ICTR, 2 September 1998, was the first international conviction for genocide and held that rape may constitute genocide where committed with the requisite intent; Article 6 of the Rome Statute of 1998 reproduces the definition, and India is not a party to the Rome Statute.

Three features make Article 17 unusual and they should be stated at the outset. It is absolute: unlike Articles 19, 25 and 26 it is subject to no restriction whatever, and no public order, morality or health exception applies. It is horizontal: it operates against private persons and not only against the State, which is true of only Articles 15(2), 17, 23 and 24. And it is self-executing in its declaratory part: untouchability stood abolished on 26 January 1950 without any statute, though punishment required one.

The word is deliberately left undefined and is placed in inverted commas. In Devarajiah v. B. Padmanna, AIR 1958 Mys 84, the court held that the term is used not in its literal or grammatical sense but in the historical sense of the social disabilities imposed on certain classes by reason of their birth in particular castes. Ambedkar and the Assembly declined a definition on the view that any list would be under-inclusive.

The statutory framework has three layers. The Untouchability (Offences) Act, 1955, renamed the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 by the amendment of 1976, which also made offences cognizable and non-compoundable and provided for enhanced punishment for public servants who wilfully neglect to investigate. The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, with its Rules of 1995, creating specific offences, special courts, and provision for relief and rehabilitation; the amendment of 2015 added new offences including social and economic boycott and garlanding with footwear. And the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, which replaced the 1993 Act and prohibits hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks.

One episode shows how contested the enforcement is. In Subhash Kashinath Mahajan v. State of Maharashtra, (2018) 6 SCC 454, the Court introduced safeguards against automatic arrest under the 1989 Act, including a preliminary enquiry and written approval before arrest. Parliament reversed this by the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act, 2018, inserting section 18A. In Union of India v. State of Maharashtra, (2020) 4 SCC 761, the Court recalled its own directions, and in Prathvi Raj Chauhan v. Union of India, (2020) 4 SCC 727, it upheld the 2018 amendment.

Sukanya Shantha v. Union of India, decided 3 October 2024, found caste segregation written into the prison manuals of several States, dividing labour and barracks by caste and treating denotified tribes as habitual offenders. The Court struck those provisions down under Articles 14, 15, 17, 21 and 23 and directed every State and Union territory to revise its manual within three months. A constitutional prohibition of 1950 was still being contradicted by subordinate rules in 2024.

Conclusion. The two notes are about the same problem seen at two scales. The Genocide Convention is the strongest norm international law contains, binding even on non-parties and enforceable before the International Court, and India has ratified it with a reservation to its only jurisdictional clause and has never enacted the domestic offence Article V requires. Article 17 is the strongest provision in Part III, absolute, horizontal and self-executing, backed by three statutes and seventy five years of case law, and Sukanya Shantha found the practice it abolishes written into State prison manuals in 2024, while the manual scavenging directions of October 2023 have had to be pursued through contempt. In both cases the norm is not in doubt; the machinery of enforcement is.

For full marks, cover: the phrase "relative importance", which is what the question turns on, that is, how minority rights rank against the other constitutional commitments they compete with; who is a minority and by what unit; the cases in which Article 30 has prevailed and the cases in which it has yielded; the two decisions of November 2024; and a conclusion which states the ranking that emerges.

The question the stem is asking

"Relative importance" invites a comparison, and the comparison the case law actually makes is between Article 30 and three competing claims: the equality of individual applicants under Article 29(2), the State's interest in educational standards, and the State's obligations to children under Article 21A. A script that simply lists Articles 29 and 30 has not answered the question.

T.M.A. Pai Foundation v. State of Karnataka, (2002) 8 SCC 481, decided by eleven judges, held that the State is the unit for determining minority status under Article 30, since the reorganisation of States was itself largely linguistic. A community may therefore be a minority in one State and a majority in another. Bal Patil v. Union of India, (2005) 6 SCC 690, declined to direct the notification of Jains as a minority under the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992, and observed that the constitutional scheme contemplates that the need for such classifications should diminish; Jains were notified in 2014 nonetheless.

Where Article 30 has prevailed

Ahmedabad St. Xavier's College Society v. State of Gujarat, (1974) 1 SCC 717, held that the right to administer does not include a right to maladminister, but struck down provisions of the Gujarat University Act which required prior approval for the appointment of the principal and staff and gave the University a role in disciplinary proceedings, because those measures displaced management rather than securing standards.

Where Article 30 has yielded

State of Bombay v. Bombay Education Society, AIR 1954 SC 561, struck down under Article 29(2) an order confining admission in English-medium schools to pupils whose mother tongue was English. Article 29(2) protects individuals against a community's institution, and T.M.A. Pai balanced the two by requiring aided minority institutions to admit a reasonable number of non-minority students.

T.M.A. Pai also subordinated minority autonomy to merit and transparency in admissions and to the prohibition of profiteering, and P.A. Inamdar v. State of Maharashtra, (2005) 6 SCC 537, confirmed that fees may be regulated and capitation prohibited.

The ranking that emerges

Read together the cases produce a ranking that can be stated in three propositions. Article 30 prevails over the State's general regulatory preferences and over Article 21A, on the authority of St. Xavier's and Pramati. It does not prevail over an individual's right under Article 29(2) or over regulation genuinely directed at standards, on the authority of Bombay Education Society, T.M.A. Pai and Anjum Kadari. And its availability has just been widened, since after AMU v. Naresh Agarwal the source of an institution's legal personality no longer determines its character.

The criticism worth making is that the doctrine has drifted from its purpose. The protection was given so that a community could preserve its language, script and culture through education. Much of the modern litigation is about the financial and administrative autonomy of institutions, and Pramati's effect is that whether a poor child obtains a free place depends on the character of the school nearest to her. A protection created to shelter a community has, in that one respect, become an exemption from a duty owed to children.

For full marks, cover: what the quotation asserts, namely that federalism is a process and not an allocation; the institutions of cooperation, with the articles; the cases that treat federalism this way, above all Mohit Minerals; then the honest qualification, that Indian federalism is also competitive and at times coercive, with the provisions that make it so; and a conclusion that tests the quotation rather than merely agreeing with it.

What the quotation asserts

The statement makes two claims. That federalism is dynamic, a process rather than a fixed allocation of subjects. And that the process is one of cooperation and shared action rather than of separated spheres. The first claim is plainly right in India. The second is right about the institutions and only partly right about the practice, and the comment should say so.

Article 279A, inserted by the Constitution (One Hundred and First Amendment) Act, 2016, creates the Goods and Services Tax Council, in which the Union holds one third of the votes, all the States together two thirds, and every decision requires a three fourths majority. Article 246A gives both levels simultaneous power to tax supplies of goods and services, which is shared action written into the text.

Article 252 allows Parliament to legislate for two or more consenting States, and Article 258 allows the Union to entrust functions to a State with its consent, while Article 258A allows the reverse. Zonal Councils under the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, and the National Development Council, replaced in effect by NITI Aayog on 1 January 2015, complete the machinery.

The qualification the comment must make

Cooperation is one of at least three modes, and the other two are real.

Competitive federalism describes the ranking of States on investment climate and service delivery, promoted since NITI Aayog replaced the Planning Commission. It is shared action only in a loose sense; its logic is rivalry.

Coercive federalism is written into the text. Article 256 obliges a State to ensure compliance with laws of Parliament, Article 257 subjects State executive power to Union directions, and Article 365 makes non-compliance a ground for a proclamation under Article 356. There is no Indian equivalent of the American anti-commandeering rule in Printz v. United States, 521 US 898 (1997). Article 253 permits Parliament to legislate on a State subject to implement a treaty, without any consent.

Conclusion. The quotation is correct as a description of the Indian design and incomplete as a description of Indian practice. The design assumes shared action: a large Concurrent List, simultaneous taxing power under Article 246A, joint institutions in Articles 263, 279A and 280, and services common to both levels. The Supreme Court has adopted the same view expressly, describing federalism as a dialogue in Mohit Minerals and holding it a basic feature in Bommai. But the Constitution also equips the Union to command, through Articles 256, 257, 365 and 253, and recent practice shows those powers used, in the Delhi services legislation of 2023 and in the assent dispute of 2025. The accurate comment is that Indian federalism is a dynamic process in which cooperation is the normal mode, competition the promoted one and coercion the reserve, and that which mode prevails at any time depends less on the text than on whether the same party governs at both levels.

How the freedom was built

Romesh Thappar v. State of Madras, AIR 1950 SC 124, is the foundation. The Madras Government banned circulation of the journal Cross Roads under a public order statute. The Court struck the ban down because Article 19(2) as it then stood permitted restriction only for the security of the State, and public order was not among the grounds. Brij Bhushan v. State of Delhi, AIR 1950 SC 129, decided the same day, struck down pre-censorship of the Organiser. Parliament answered with the First Amendment, 1951, which added public order and other grounds and inserted the word "reasonable".

Sakal Papers (P) Ltd. v. Union of India, AIR 1962 SC 305, struck down an order fixing the number of pages permissible at a given price, holding that the State cannot cut circulation in the name of commercial regulation. Bennett Coleman & Co. v. Union of India, (1972) 2 SCC 788, struck down the newsprint policy limiting pages, holding that the freedom of the press is both quantitative and qualitative and that a restriction on volume is a restriction on expression. Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Pvt. Ltd. v. Union of India, (1985) 1 SCC 641, held that while the press is not immune from taxation, a levy operating as a restraint on circulation offends Article 19(1)(a).

Access for minorities and dissenters. Freedom of speech is worth little to a community that owns no printing press, which is why the Court has treated circulation and reach as part of the right, in Sakal Papers and Bennett Coleman. It is also why internet access matters: Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India, (2020) 3 SCC 637, held that an indefinite suspension of internet services is impermissible, that every order must be published so that it can be challenged, and that periodic review is required.

Accountability. Madhyamam Broadcasting Ltd. v. Union of India, decided 5 April 2023, restored the licence of MediaOne, revoked on the basis of a security clearance produced in a sealed cover, holding that sealed cover procedure offends natural justice and open justice and that a claim of public interest immunity must itself be tested. Association for Democratic Reforms v. Union of India, decided 15 February 2024, striking down the electoral bonds scheme, rests on the voter's right to information under Article 19(1)(a), which is the same right the press exists to serve.

The current pressure points should be named. Criminal defamation was upheld in Subramanian Swamy v. Union of India, (2016) 7 SCC 221. Sedition under section 124A of the Indian Penal Code was kept in abeyance by the order in S.G. Vombatkere v. Union of India of 11 May 2022 and reappears as section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023. And the Fact Check Unit created by the Information Technology Amendment Rules, 2023, was struck down by the Bombay High Court in Kunal Kamra v. Union of India, 26 September 2024, as violating Articles 14, 19(1)(a) and 19(1)(g), with the Supreme Court agreeing in March 2026 to examine the Union's appeal.

For full marks, cover: the constitutional theory in one paragraph; then each of the three groups with its provisions, its principal statute and its two or three leading cases; the machinery; and a short assessment. At twelve and a half marks the discipline is selection: name fewer cases and work them properly rather than listing many.

The theory

Article 14 guarantees equal protection of the laws, which has never meant identical treatment, and in a plural society disadvantage attaches to groups rather than to individuals. In State of Kerala v. N.M. Thomas, (1976) 2 SCC 310, the Court held that Article 16(4) is a facet of Article 16(1) and not an exception to it, because equality of opportunity between persons in unequal positions is not equality. That single proposition supports everything below.

Indra Sawhney v. Union of India, 1992 Supp (3) SCC 217, is the framework. Nine judges upheld the 27 per cent reservation for Other Backward Classes recommended by the Mandal Commission, struck down a further 10 per cent for the economically backward among the forward classes, and held that backwardness is social and educational rather than merely economic, that the creamy layer must be excluded, that reservation should not ordinarily exceed 50 per cent, and that Article 16(4) does not extend to promotions. The last holding was reversed by the Seventy-seventh Amendment and the resulting Article 16(4A) was upheld in M. Nagaraj v. Union of India, (2006) 8 SCC 212, subject to quantifiable data; Jarnail Singh v. Lachhmi Narain Gupta, (2018) 10 SCC 396, removed the need to prove backwardness for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes while retaining the creamy layer.

State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh, decided 1 August 2024, is the most recent change and any answer from an older book will be wrong. Seven judges held by six to one that the Scheduled Castes are not a homogeneous class and that States may sub-classify within them to prefer the most disadvantaged, overruling E.V. Chinnaiah v. State of Andhra Pradesh, (2005) 1 SCC 394, subject to quantifiable data and to the rule that the whole quota may not go to one sub-group.

Secretary, Ministry of Defence v. Babita Puniya, (2020) 7 SCC 469, held women officers entitled to permanent commission in the Army on the same terms as men, rejecting arguments about physiology and troop psychology as sex stereotypes; Lt. Col. Nitisha v. Union of India, (2021) 15 SCC 125, recognised indirect discrimination, holding unconstitutional a facially neutral benchmark derived from male officers' standards. In personal law, Shayara Bano v. Union of India, (2017) 9 SCC 1, struck down talaq-e-biddat, Vineeta Sharma v. Rakesh Sharma, (2020) 9 SCC 1, made a daughter a coparcener by birth, and Mohd. Abdul Samad v. State of Telangana, decided 10 July 2024, held section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure available to a divorced Muslim woman.

Political representation remains unfinished. The Constitution (One Hundred and Sixth Amendment) Act, 2023, reserving one third of the seats in the House of the People and the State Assemblies for women, came into force on 16 April 2026 and is still not operative, because Article 334A conditions its operation on a delimitation following the next census.

Samatha v. State of Andhra Pradesh, (1997) 8 SCC 191, held by two to one that "person" in a regulation prohibiting transfer of land in a scheduled area includes the State, so government land there cannot be leased to non-tribals for mining. Orissa Mining Corporation v. Ministry of Environment and Forests, (2013) 6 SCC 476, the Niyamgiri case, required the gram sabhas of the Dongria Kondh to decide whether bauxite mining would affect their religious and forest rights; all twelve refused and the clearance was denied. It is the clearest Indian instance of a constitutional protection producing an outcome the State did not want.

Machinery and assessment

The machinery is the National Commissions under Articles 338, 338A and 338B, the statutory National Commission for Women, and the special courts under the 1989 Act; their recommendations are not binding, which is the standing complaint.

For full marks, cover: the fact that the Indian power is express where the American is inferred; the three objects of review; the two decisions which hold in terms that review is a basic feature, which is what the word "essential" in the stem points at; a short list of the power actually being used; and the objections. At twelve and a half marks, prefer four cases worked out to twelve cases named.

An express power, not an inferred one

Marbury v. Madison, 5 US 137 (1803), had to construct judicial review out of the supremacy clause and the judicial oath, because the American Constitution nowhere confers it. The Indian Constitution confers it in terms, which is why the stem can call it a cornerstone rather than a construction.

The two decisions that make review "essential"

Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala, (1973) 4 SCC 225, decided by thirteen judges by seven to six, held that the amending power under Article 368 does not extend to altering the basic structure, and 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, struck down clauses (4) and (5) of Article 368, holding that a limited amending power cannot enlarge itself into an unlimited one.

L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India, (1997) 3 SCC 261, answers the stem directly. Articles 323A and 323B had authorised administrative tribunals, and Article 323A(2)(d) permitted exclusion of the jurisdiction of all courts save the Supreme Court under Article 136. Seven judges held that the power of judicial review vested in the High Courts under Article 226 and in the Supreme Court under Article 32 is an integral and essential feature of the Constitution and part of the basic structure, struck down clause 2(d) so far as it excluded High Court jurisdiction, and held tribunal decisions subject to scrutiny by a Division Bench of the High Court concerned.

The power used

A claim of this kind is worth only what the record shows. S.R. Bommai v. Union of India, (1994) 3 SCC 1, held the President's satisfaction under Article 356 justiciable and required a floor test, after which its use fell sharply. Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India, (2020) 3 SCC 637, held indefinite internet suspension impermissible and required every such order to be published. Association for Democratic Reforms v. Union of India, decided 15 February 2024, struck down the electoral bonds scheme as violating 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, held punitive demolition of an accused person's property contrary to the rule of law and laid down binding procedural directions. Mineral Area Development Authority v. Steel Authority of India, decided 25 July 2024, restored to the States a taxing power withheld from them for thirty years.

Conclusion. Judicial review is a cornerstone in the literal sense: remove it and Article 13 becomes a preference, Part III a list of aspirations, and the Seventh Schedule a matter for negotiation between the governments it binds. The power is express, it reaches legislation, executive action and constitutional amendment, and L. Chandra Kumar and I.R. Coelho hold in terms that it is an essential feature beyond the amending power. The record shows it used against proclamations dismissing State governments, an amendment validating a Prime Minister's election, a scheme for anonymous political funding and a practice of punitive demolition. The real risk is not that the power will be removed, since it cannot be, but that a court asked to decide everything will end by governing, and the only check on that is the Court's own restraint.

Then the decisions in two groups. The maintenance line: Mohd. Ahmed Khan v. Shah Bano Begum, (1985) 2 SCC 556, holding section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure a secular provision cutting across personal law, with Chandrachud CJ's observation that Article 44 has remained a dead letter; the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, passed in response; Danial Latifi v. Union of India, (2001) 7 SCC 740, reading section 3(1)(a) to require a provision made within the iddat but sufficient for life; and Mohd. Abdul Samad v. State of Telangana, decided 10 July 2024, holding section 125 still available and the 1986 Act an additional remedy.

The conversion and succession line: Sarla Mudgal v. Union of India, (1995) 3 SCC 635, on Hindu husbands converting to Islam to take a second wife, the second marriage being void and section 494 of the Indian Penal Code attracted; Lily Thomas v. Union of India, (2000) 6 SCC 224, affirming it and clarifying that no direction to enact a code was given; John Vallamattom v. Union of India, (2003) 6 SCC 611, striking down section 118 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925; Shayara Bano v. Union of India, (2017) 9 SCC 1, striking down talaq-e-biddat as manifestly arbitrary; and Jose Paulo Coutinho v. Maria Luiza Valentina Pereira, (2019) 20 SCC 190, calling Goa a shining example.

Conclusion. The full treatment, with facts, is at Q.1 of Q.P. Code 50548 in this volume. The pattern to state is that the Supreme Court has applied secular statutes to defeat unjust outcomes and has exhorted Parliament for forty years, but has never ordered a code, because Article 44 addresses the State and Narasu Appa Mali blocks the route to personal law itself; and that a code enacted State by State is not uniform throughout the territory of India.

The word is deliberately undefined and stands in inverted commas, and Devarajiah v. B. Padmanna, AIR 1958 Mys 84, held that it is used in its historical sense of caste-based social disability rather than literally. State of Karnataka v. Appa Balu Ingale, AIR 1993 SC 1126, is the leading case: Scheduled Caste villagers were prevented by force from drawing water from a newly dug borewell, and the Supreme Court restored the conviction, Ramaswamy J. describing untouchability as social ostracism founded on caste and its abolition as an aspect of the right to dignity under Article 21.

The statutes are the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 (originally the Untouchability (Offences) Act, renamed and strengthened in 1976), the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, with the amendment of 2015, and the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013. Note the episode in which Subhash Kashinath Mahajan v. State of Maharashtra, (2018) 6 SCC 454, introduced safeguards against arrest, Parliament reversed it by the amendment of 2018 inserting section 18A, the Court recalled its directions in Union of India v. State of Maharashtra, (2020) 4 SCC 761, and upheld the amendment in Prathvi Raj Chauhan v. Union of India, (2020) 4 SCC 727.

The Constitution protects ethnic identity by three techniques, and naming them is the substance of the note.

Recognition. Article 342 provides for the specification of Scheduled Tribes by the President in relation to each State, and Article 366(25) defines the term by reference to that list. Recognition is territorial: a community may be scheduled in one State and not in another.

Territorial autonomy. Articles 244 and 244A with the Fifth and Sixth Schedules. In Fifth Schedule areas the Governor may direct that a law of Parliament or of the State legislature shall not apply, or shall apply with modification, and a Tribes Advisory Council must be constituted. In the Sixth Schedule areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram, autonomous district and regional councils exercise legislative, executive and judicial powers over land, forests, shifting cultivation, inheritance, marriage and social custom, and may constitute village councils to try disputes between tribals.

Two cases show the protection operating. Samatha v. State of Andhra Pradesh, (1997) 8 SCC 191, held by two to one that "person" in a regulation prohibiting transfer of land in a scheduled area includes the State, so government land there cannot be leased to a non-tribal for mining. Orissa Mining Corporation v. Ministry of Environment and Forests, (2013) 6 SCC 476, required the gram sabhas of the Dongria Kondh to decide whether bauxite mining in the Niyamgiri hills would affect their religious and community forest rights; all twelve refused, and the clearance was denied.

Two tensions should close the note. The first is between the group and the individual inside it: Madhu Kishwar v. State of Bihar, (1996) 5 SCC 125, declined to strike down customary succession rules excluding tribal women, granting only a limited right of residence, and the conflict between protecting a community's autonomy and protecting a woman within it remains unresolved. The second is implementation: forest rights claims have been rejected in very large numbers with inadequate reasons, and Ladakh's demand for inclusion in the Sixth Schedule after the reorganisation of 2019 shows that the constitutional instruments of ethnic protection are still being asked for rather than merely maintained.

Both notes are required and each is worth about 6.25 marks. Note (a) rewards recent case law, because the right to dissent is where constitutional law has moved most in the last three years. Note (b) rewards structure: Dicey, the criticism, the Indian home of the doctrine, and one worked case.

(a) Right to dissent

There is no article of the Constitution called the right to dissent. It is a composite drawn from Article 19(1)(a), freedom of speech and expression; Article 19(1)(b), the right to assemble peaceably and without arms; Article 19(1)(c), the right to form associations; Article 21, personal liberty and dignity; and Article 25, freedom of conscience. Its limits are the reasonable restrictions in Article 19(2) and (3), of which public order and the sovereignty and integrity of India are the ones usually invoked.

Sedition is the standing threat. Kedar Nath Singh v. State of Bihar, AIR 1962 SC 955, upheld section 124A of the Indian Penal Code only on the narrow construction that it reaches words which incite violence or tend to create public disorder, and not strong criticism of the government. Balwant Singh v. State of Punjab, (1995) 3 SCC 214, acquitted two men who raised pro-Khalistan slogans on the day of Indira Gandhi's assassination, holding that casual sloganeering by two individuals which drew no response from the public was not sedition. Section 124A was kept in abeyance by the order in S.G. Vombatkere v. Union of India of 11 May 2022, and the offence now appears, in altered form, as section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, in force from 1 July 2024.

The limits are real and should be stated. In Amit Sahni v. Commissioner of Police, (2020) 10 SCC 439, arising from the Shaheen Bagh protest, the Court held that the right to protest must be exercised at designated places and that an indefinite occupation of a public way is not protected, since public spaces cannot be occupied indefinitely. And Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan v. Union of India, (2018) 17 SCC 324, while striking down a blanket prohibition on demonstrations at Jantar Mantar, accepted that regulation in the interest of residents is permissible. The right protects the expression of dissent, not the appropriation of public space for it.

(b) Rule of Law

Dicey's three limbs are the supremacy of regular law as against arbitrary power; equality before the law, meaning the equal subjection of all classes to the ordinary law administered by the ordinary courts; and the derivation of constitutional principles from judicial decisions in particular cases.

In India the doctrine has no separate article and does not need one. Article 13 voids inconsistent law; Article 14 supplies both supremacy and equality; Article 21 requires a procedure which, after Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India, (1978) 1 SCC 248, must be right, just and fair; and Articles 32 and 226 supply the remedy. S.G. Jaisinghani v. Union of India, AIR 1967 SC 1427, states the working principle: the absence of arbitrary power is the first essential of the rule of law, and discretion must be confined within clearly defined limits so that decisions are made by known rules and not by chance or caprice. Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala, (1973) 4 SCC 225, made it a basic feature, and Indira Nehru Gandhi v. Raj Narain, 1975 Supp SCC 1, applied it by striking down clause (4) of Article 329A, which had placed a Prime Minister's election beyond challenge and validated it retrospectively while an appeal was pending.

Conclusion. The two notes are the same principle from two directions. The rule of law requires that power be exercised only under law and be answerable in an independent court; the right to dissent is what makes that answerability possible, because a power nobody may criticise is a power nobody will challenge. Indian law protects dissent through the proximity and incitement tests, most recently in Javed Ahmad Hajam in March 2024 and Imran Pratapgadhi in March 2025, and limits it where it becomes the occupation of public space, as in Amit Sahni. The rule of law is a basic feature whose lowest point, ADM Jabalpur, was reached when dissent had been suppressed, and whose recovery came through the one dissenting judgment delivered in that case.