Golaknath Case (1967): Can Parliament Amend Fundamental Rights?

What were the facts of the Golaknath case?

Henry and William Golak Nath were brothers who owned over 500 acres of farmland in Punjab. Under the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act, 1953, the State declared much of that land surplus. They challenged the Act, saying it violated their rights to property and to practise a profession.

The Act had been placed in the Ninth Schedule by the Constitution (Seventeenth Amendment) Act, 1964, which protected it from challenge on the ground of violating Fundamental Rights. So the brothers also attacked the amendment itself.

Judgment was delivered on 27 February 1967 by an 11-judge bench led by Chief Justice K. Subba Rao.

What was the legal issue before the Supreme Court?

The question was whether Parliament could amend Part III (Fundamental Rights) using Article 368. Article 13(2) says the State shall not make any “law” that takes away or abridges Fundamental Rights. Was a constitutional amendment also a “law” within Article 13(2)?

Two earlier decisions had said no. Shankari Prasad (1951) and Sajjan Singh (1965) held that Parliament could amend Fundamental Rights. The Court now had to decide whether those cases should stand.

• Does Article 368 contain the power to amend, or only the procedure?
• Is an amendment a “law” under Article 13(2)?
• Are Fundamental Rights beyond amendment?

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What did the court hold in Golaknath?

By a 6–5 majority, the Court overruled Shankari Prasad and Sajjan Singh. It held that Parliament had no power to amend Part III so as to take away or abridge Fundamental Rights. An amendment under Article 368 was a “law” under Article 13(2) and so was void if it violated those rights.

The majority treated Article 368 as laying down only the procedure for amendment. The source of power, it said, lay in Parliament’s ordinary legislative powers, which are subject to Article 13.

The Court still upheld the 1964 amendment and the land laws in the case itself, using a new doctrine described below.

What is prospective overruling in Golaknath?

Chief Justice Subba Rao applied the doctrine of “prospective overruling”. This means the new rule applies only from the date of judgment, not backwards. The Seventeenth, First and Fourth Amendments were therefore left undisturbed.

The Court reasoned that striking down these amendments retroactively would have caused serious upheaval, since many land reform laws and transactions depended on them. The doctrine borrowed from American legal thinking and was a new approach in Indian courts.

Why did the judges say Fundamental Rights are protected?

The majority said Fundamental Rights hold a “transcendental” position. They are not a gift of the legislature, but basic human freedoms the Constitution promised to guarantee. If Parliament could remove them at will, the guarantee in Part III would be hollow.

The minority disagreed. They argued that Parliament, as the constituent power, must be able to adjust the Constitution to social needs such as land reform, and that Article 13 was aimed at ordinary laws, not amendments.

What happened after Golaknath?

Parliament responded with the 24th Amendment (1971). It added clauses to Articles 13 and 368 saying that Article 13 does not apply to constitutional amendments and that Parliament may amend any provision. The 25th Amendment later curbed the property right further.

In Kesavananda Bharati (1973), a 13-judge bench overruled Golaknath. It held that Parliament can amend Fundamental Rights but not the basic structure. So Golaknath is no longer good law on its main holding.

Its lasting value is historical. It forced a national debate about the balance between property reforms and individual rights, and it paved the way for the basic structure idea.

What does the Golaknath case mean for you?

Today, Fundamental Rights can be amended, but only within the limits set by the basic structure doctrine. If you challenge a law or amendment on rights grounds, you will rely on Kesavananda and later cases, not Golaknath.

For exam answers, link the cases in order: Shankari Prasad (1951), Sajjan Singh (1965), Golaknath (1967), 24th Amendment (1971), Kesavananda (1973). Cite Golaknath as AIR 1967 SC 1643.

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Was the Golaknath majority united on every reason?

The six judges supporting the result did not all take an identical route. Chief Justice Subba Rao’s opinion, joined by four judges, treated Article 368 primarily as procedural and located the amendment power elsewhere in the constitutional scheme. Justice Hidayatullah wrote separately and agreed with the restriction on abridging Fundamental Rights, but differed in aspects of the reasoning. The distinction matters because a numerical majority for the outcome does not mean every proposition in the leading opinion commanded six votes.

For research or an examination answer, distinguish the result from the individual explanations supporting it. It is safe to state that the Court prevented future amendments abridging Fundamental Rights, while preserving earlier amendments. It is less accurate to attribute every statement about the source of amendment power to a completely unified majority. Separate opinions are especially important in closely divided constitutional cases, where later courts may accept one strand of reasoning while rejecting another. Read the operative conclusion alongside the reasons, not in isolation.

Why did property rights create such a constitutional conflict?

At the time of Golaknath, property enjoyed Fundamental Rights protection through Articles 19(1)(f) and 31. Land redistribution therefore generated repeated disputes about the relationship between individual guarantees and programmes intended to dismantle concentrated landholding. Constitutional amendments were used to protect reform legislation from rights challenges. The disagreement was not simply whether agriculture should be reformed, but whether an elected government could modify the very guarantees against which its reform laws would otherwise be tested in court.

The constitutional position of property later changed substantially. The Forty-fourth Amendment removed property from Part III and introduced Article 300A, under which deprivation of property requires authority of law. That development does not erase the historical importance of the earlier disputes. It does mean that a present-day landowner should not assume that the precise Fundamental Rights arguments raised by the Golak Nath family remain available in the same form. Current claims require attention to Article 300A, the relevant statute and other applicable guarantees.

What did prospective overruling protect, and what did it not mean?

Prospective overruling is a judicial technique for managing the consequences of changing precedent. In Golaknath, the Court sought to avoid upsetting constitutional amendments and arrangements already relied upon while announcing a different limit for the future. This was more than postponing enforcement of an order. It separated the Court’s statement of the constitutional rule from the retrospective consequences that would ordinarily follow from declaring an earlier understanding mistaken. Stability and constitutional correctness were treated as related but distinct concerns.

It would be misleading to say that every later Supreme Court decision operates only prospectively. Retrospective application remains possible, and any exceptional limitation depends on the judgment’s terms and legal context. Nor does Golaknath give a subordinate court a general permission to disregard binding precedent whenever it considers fairness to demand a new rule. Someone relying on prospective protection must identify an actual judicial direction covering their situation, including its dates, scope and any treatment of pending proceedings or completed transactions.

How did the Twenty-fourth Amendment answer the judgment’s reasoning?

The Twenty-fourth Amendment did more than announce disagreement with the Court’s result. It expressly described Parliament as exercising constituent power under Article 368 and stated that the power extended to amendment by addition, variation or repeal. Article 13 was also altered to exclude amendments made under Article 368 from its operation. These changes directly addressed the argument that amendments were ordinary law subject to Article 13 and that Article 368 supplied procedure without a distinct constituent power.

The amendment also made presidential assent obligatory for a duly passed constitutional amendment bill. Together, these changes clarified the machinery and asserted the breadth of the amending power. Their validity still required constitutional adjudication, however: Parliament could not conclusively settle the permissible limits of its own authority merely by describing that authority as constituent. Kesavananda accepted the amendment’s central clarification while rejecting the conclusion that a formally valid exercise of constituent power could destroy the Constitution’s basic structure without judicial scrutiny.

How do you distinguish an overruled holding from a lasting contribution?

A judgment can lose authority on its central rule while remaining important for legal method and constitutional history. Golaknath’s prohibition on abridging Fundamental Rights is not today’s amendment test. Its use of prospective overruling, treatment of reliance interests and insistence on confronting the consequences of constitutional change remain valuable subjects of study. A sound case note separates these contributions instead of labelling the whole judgment either fully binding or entirely irrelevant after the later change in doctrine.

In a problem question, first identify whether the dispute concerns an ordinary law, a constitutional amendment or the effect of a new precedent on older transactions. Those categories lead to different inquiries. For an ordinary rights-restricting statute, Article 13 remains important. For a constitutional amendment, Article 368 and basic structure review are central. For a claim about temporal protection, examine the relevant judgment’s directions. This approach explains precisely where Golaknath belongs without accidentally presenting its superseded restriction as the current law.