4. Relationship between Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles of State Policy

This is the 4th post in Constitutional Law-I, Unit 5. The earlier posts in this unit explained what the Directive Principles are, how they are classified, and how courts interpret them through harmonious construction. This post covers the single most examined topic in this unit — the decades-long constitutional struggle over how far Directive Principles can be given priority over Fundamental Rights, running from Golaknath through Kesavananda Bharati to Minerva Mills.

The Problem This Topic Solves

Champakam Dorairajan (1951), discussed in the first post of this unit, settled one narrow point: where a Directive Principle and a Fundamental Right genuinely collide, the Fundamental Right wins, because only Part III is enforceable. But that answer created a much bigger political and constitutional problem. If Parliament could never give a Directive Principle — say, Article 39(b) and (c)'s promise of fair distribution of resources and prevention of concentration of wealth — real priority over Fundamental Rights like Article 14 (equality) and Article 19 (freedom of property, at the time still a Fundamental Right), then ambitious land reform and nationalisation programmes central to the government's economic policy could always be struck down by courts applying Part III. This post traces how Parliament tried to solve that problem through successive constitutional amendments, how the Supreme Court responded, and where the law finally settled.

Can Parliament Amend Fundamental Rights at All?

The deeper question behind every attempt to prioritise Directive Principles was whether Parliament could amend Part III under Article 368 in the first place. In Golaknath v. State of Punjab, the Supreme Court, by a narrow 6:5 majority, held that Parliament has no power to amend Fundamental Rights so as to take away or abridge any of them — treating Article 13(2)'s bar on "law" abridging Fundamental Rights as extending even to a constitutional amendment. The Court applied this ruling only prospectively, so that amendments already made remained valid, but the message for the future was unambiguous: as the law stood after 1967, the route to giving Directive Principles genuine priority over Fundamental Rights through a constitutional amendment appeared closed.

The Response — the 24th and 25th Amendments, and the Birth of Article 31C

Parliament's answer to Golaknath came in two steps in 1971. The Constitution (Twenty-fourth Amendment) Act, 1971 directly reversed Golaknath by amending Article 368 itself to make clear that Parliament does have the power to amend any provision of the Constitution, including the Fundamental Rights in Part III, and by amending Article 13 to state that Article 13(2) does not apply to a constitutional amendment made under Article 368.

The Constitution (Twenty-fifth Amendment) Act, 1971 went further, inserting the new Article 31C. In its original form, Article 31C provided that no law giving effect to the policy of the State toward securing the principles specified in Article 39(b) or (c) could be declared void on the ground that it was inconsistent with, or took away or abridged, the rights conferred by Article 14 or Article 19 — effectively giving these two specific Directive Principles priority over these two specific Fundamental Rights. The 25th Amendment additionally attempted to insert a clause providing that no such law could be questioned in any court on the ground that it did not give effect to that policy — an attempt to oust judicial review of the connection between the law and Article 39(b)/(c) altogether.

The Basic Structure Answer

A thirteen-judge Bench — still the largest ever assembled by the Supreme Court — was convened to test the validity of both the 24th and 25th Amendments together. By a wafer-thin 7:6 majority, the Court overruled Golaknath on the core question: Parliament does have the power under Article 368 to amend any part of the Constitution, including Part III. But the same majority laid down a new, and far more durable, limit — Parliament cannot use its amending power to alter the "basic structure" or "basic features" of the Constitution, a limit not written anywhere in the constitutional text but read into Article 368 itself.

Applying this framework to the 25th Amendment, the Court upheld the first part of Article 31C — protecting laws that genuinely give effect to Article 39(b) and (c) from challenge under Article 14 and 19 was treated as a legitimate legislative choice, not an assault on the basic structure. But the Court struck down the second part — the clause ousting judicial review of whether a law actually gave effect to that policy — holding that judicial review is itself part of the basic structure, and Parliament cannot remove a court's power to check whether a law claiming Article 31C's protection genuinely qualifies for it.

The 42nd Amendment's Overreach

During the National Emergency (1975–77), Parliament passed the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976 — often called a "mini-Constitution" for the scale of its changes. Among many other things, it amended Article 31C to extend its protection from just Article 39(b) and (c) to all the Directive Principles contained anywhere in Part IV, meaning that any law claiming to give effect to any Directive Principle whatsoever would be shielded from challenge under Article 14 and Article 19. This was also the amendment that inserted Article 39A, Article 43A, Article 48A and the entire Part IVA on Fundamental Duties, discussed in the second half of this unit.

Restoring the Balance

Minerva Mills challenged, among other provisions, this expanded version of Article 31C. The Supreme Court struck it down, holding that the harmony and balance between Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles is itself part of the Constitution's basic structure. Giving every single Directive Principle blanket priority over Article 14 and Article 19, the Court reasoned, would not merely favour Part IV in a particular case — it would destroy the essential balance the Constitution's framers built between the two Parts, effectively allowing Parliament to erode Fundamental Rights piece by piece under the cover of implementing Part IV. The 42nd Amendment's extension of Article 31C was accordingly held unconstitutional, and Article 31C reverted to protecting only laws genuinely implementing Article 39(b) and (c), exactly as it had stood after Kesavananda Bharati.

Where the Law Stands Today

The net result of this entire sequence is a settled, three-part position. First, Parliament can amend Fundamental Rights, but not so as to damage the basic structure of the Constitution (Kesavananda Bharati, overruling Golaknath). Second, a law can validly be shielded from an Article 14/19 challenge if — and only if — it genuinely gives effect to Article 39(b) or 39(c) specifically, not any Directive Principle whatsoever (the surviving, narrower Article 31C). Third, Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles are not rivals in a zero-sum contest but complementary halves of one constitutional vision, and courts must read them together wherever possible, exactly as the harmonious construction technique from the previous post requires — neither Part can be allowed to swallow the other whole.

The Full Sequence at a Glance

• Golaknath (1967): Parliament cannot amend Fundamental Rights at all — later overruled on this point
• 24th Amendment restored Parliament's power to amend Part III; 25th Amendment inserted Article 31C for Article 39(b)/(c)
• Kesavananda Bharati (1973): Parliament can amend any part of the Constitution, but not the "basic structure"; upheld Article 31C's core but struck its judicial-review ouster
• 42nd Amendment (1976) extended Article 31C to cover all Directive Principles
• Minerva Mills (1980): struck down that extension — the balance between Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles is itself part of the basic structure
• Present position: Article 31C protects only laws genuinely implementing Article 39(b) and 39(c) against Article 14/19 challenges

• Kesavananda Bharati was decided by a 7:6 margin — one of the narrowest possible majorities for a decision of this magnitude
• Article 19 originally included the right to property as a Fundamental Right; property was removed from Part III and made an ordinary legal right under Article 300A by the 44th Amendment, 1978 — partly in response to the very tensions this topic describes
• Minerva Mills also struck down a separate provision of the 42nd Amendment that had tried to place all constitutional amendments beyond judicial review entirely — a second, independent basic-structure violation in the same judgment

A Practical Example

A State enacts a law capping the size of agricultural landholdings and redistributing the surplus land to landless farmers, genuinely implementing Article 39(b)'s goal of distributing material resources for the common good. A large landowner challenges the law as violating Article 14 (arbitrary classification of landowners) and the residual property protections that survive under Article 300A. Because the law genuinely gives effect to Article 39(b), Article 31C — as it stands today, after Minerva Mills — shields it from the Article 14 challenge. If, instead, the State tried to justify some unrelated law (say, one restricting press freedom under Article 19(1)(a)) purely by pointing to Article 51's general goal of promoting international peace, Article 31C would give it no protection at all, because Article 31C only ever covered Article 39(b) and (c) — not "any Directive Principle whatsoever," which is precisely the broader version Minerva Mills struck down.

Quick Revision Points

• Champakam Dorairajan → Golaknath → 24th/25th Amendments → Kesavananda Bharati → 42nd Amendment → Minerva Mills is the complete sequence
• Golaknath said Parliament cannot touch Fundamental Rights; Kesavananda Bharati corrected this but invented the basic structure limit instead
• Article 31C, in its surviving form, only protects laws implementing Article 39(b) and 39(c) from Article 14/19 challenges
• Minerva Mills is the case to cite for "the balance between Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles is part of the basic structure"
• Neither Part III nor Part IV can be given absolute, blanket priority over the other — that is the final, settled position