50 years of Kesavanada Bharathi judgment: Supreme Court dedicates web page containing details of case verdict

“Today is the 50th anniversary of the Kesavanada Bharati judgment, which was delivered on April 24, 1973. We have dedicated a webpage on the judgment which has the case notes, written submissions,” the CJI told lawyers present in the courtroom.

“Everything about Kesavananda Bharati is now on a dedicated webpage for the world of researchers to look at whenever they wish. So please look at it,” the CJI added.

Besides the arguments of the two sides in the case — it is titled His Holiness Kesavananda Bharathi Sripadagalavaru Vs State of Kerala & Anr — the webpage also has the views of all the 13 judges that heard it. The judgment is available in both English and Hindi.

In its introduction of the case, the webpage says “the origins of the Kesavananda Bharati case can be traced back to the land reforms that were introduced in the Indian state of Kerala in the 1950s and 1960s. These reforms were aimed at redistributing land from large landowners to the landless and the poor. In 1963, the Kerala government passed the Kerala Land Reforms Act, which placed a limit on the amount of land that a person could hold. The Act provided for the acquisition of excess land from landowners and its distribution to the landless and the poor”.

It further says: “Sri Kesavananda Bharati was the pontiff of the Edneer Mutt, a Hindu religious institution in Kerala. In 1970, the Government of Kerala imposed restrictions on the ownership of land held by religious institutions. The Edneer Mutt, headed by Sri Kesavananda Bharati, challenged the constitutionality of the Act in the Kerala High Court. The case eventually reached the Supreme Court, which ruled in favour of the state government.”

The webpage points out that “the Parliament of India in the meantime passed the 24th Amendment to the Constitution, which sought to curtail the powers of the judiciary and limit the scope of judicial review. The 25th and 29th Amendments were also passed, which sought to limit the fundamental rights of citizens and give Parliament the power to amend any part of the Constitution”.

Kesavananda Bharati “filed a petition challenging the validity of these amendments, arguing that they violated the basic structure of the Constitution. This led to the landmark Kesavananda Bharati judgment, which upheld the basic structure doctrine and placed limits on the power of the Parliament to amend the Constitution”.