HCs to have jurisdiction over panchayat

Prior to this, only the election tribunal was the forum to challenge such elections and the 73rd amendment of the Constitution had imposed a total ban on the High Court for entertaining such writ petitions.

The full bench while reading down Article 243-O and Article 243-ZG and diluting it, has allowed the High Courts to take up such matters.

The full bench has noticed the argument that Article 243-O was taking away the powers of judicial review of the high courts, which was held to be a basic feature of the Constitution and the same could not be taken away as held by the Supreme Court in the cases of Kesho Nand Bharti, Minerwa Mills and L. Chandra Kumar.

The full bench noticed the fact that the basic structure of the Constitution could not be tinkered with and the amending power with the Parliament was a limited one and the constitution could only be amended but not abrogated.