DRAWING CONTOURS OF BASIC STRUCTURE DOCTRINE: AN APPRAISAL

Abstract

The recent remarks of Constitutional post holders over the Basic Structure doctrine have again spurred an age old controversy of Legislature and Judiciary conflict. Questioning the judicial prudence by criticizing fundamental constitutional safeguards have become a norm in contemporary, while the same poses a threat of delegitimizing the legal wisdom of the constitutional courts. Basic Structure Doctrine serves as the beacon of light for our darkest constitutional days by historically acting as sole guardian against arbitrariness and irrationality of legislative decision making. Interrogation of such paramount judicial innovation has put at doubt the authority of our judiciary to deliberate and decide over constitution matters. This paper makes an attempt to address the efficacy of Basic Structure Doctrine in redressing constitutional fallacies and attempts at bypassing rule of law. Legal Precedents and Jurisprudences have been studied to assess the present-day legitimacy of the doctrine. The paper aims to have discussions on the debated power struggle of our major constitutional institutions and the success of key constitutional provision like Basic Structure in addressing the same. The paper also legally analyzes whether the Parliament has legal power to disregard the constitutional wisdom of judiciary by legislatively overruling the judicial reviews. And also the authors will try to deliberate upon the current tussle on the basic structure doctrine and to analyze whether it would set a wrong precedent in a constitutional democracy.