47 Topics.
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What to Study: Remember the full case name, its popular name, the journal that was banned and the law used for the ban. Understand why freedom of circulation is part of freedom of speech and expression, and why the press is called a foundation of democracy.
Asked in UPSC PrelimsUPSC 2023
What to Study: At the time, why could the court not accept "public order" as a ground for restricting speech? Remember what the 1st Amendment (1951) added to Article 19(2) after this case.
What to Study: Which section of the Preventive Detention Act, 1950 was struck down, and was the rest of the Act valid? Understand how narrowly "personal liberty" in Article 21 was read, and against whom Article 21 was said to give protection.
What to Study: How does "procedure established by law" differ from "due process of law"? Understand why the court read "law" in Article 21 as state-made law and not natural justice. Remember how long this view lasted, which later case applied it most strictly, and which case overruled it.
What to Study: Why was the Communal GO struck down, and which two Articles did it violate? Understand the court's view of Directive Principles against Fundamental Rights, and the Article 46 aim behind the order.
Asked in UPSC PrelimsUPSC 2023
What to Study: What does Article 15(4) allow, and for which groups? Remember which amendment inserted it and how it cancelled the effect of this ruling.
What to Study: Could Parliament amend Fundamental Rights under Article 368? Understand why an amendment was held not to be a "law" under Article 13(2). Remember which amendment was upheld and which right it curtailed through Articles 31A and 31B.
What to Study: How does ordinary (legislative) law differ from constituent law? Know which later case reaffirmed this ruling in 1964, and which case overruled it.
What to Study: Why is Article 3 not enough for giving Indian territory to a foreign country? Understand what is needed instead, and how the First Schedule is involved. Remember how the case reached the court, and under which Article.
What to Study: What did the court say about whether the Preamble is part of the Constitution? Know which later case changed this view.
What to Study: Which amendment followed this ruling, and which 1958 agreement lay behind it? Know what the agreement was about, including the Cooch-Behar enclaves. Was the transfer actually carried out at that time? Know how the boundary was finally settled (100th Amendment, 2015).
What to Study: How did this case show the weaknesses of the jury system? Remember when jury trials finally ended in India, and what happened to Nanavati after he spent three years in prison.
What to Study: Which two earlier rulings did Golak Nath overrule? Understand its holding on Fundamental Rights, the amending power under Article 368, and the meaning of "law" in Article 13(2).
What to Study: What is prospective overruling, and how does it differ from retrospective operation? Remember which three amendments the court kept valid by applying it.
What to Study: How did the 24th Amendment (1971) answer this ruling? Remember its provisions on the amending power and on Article 13(2), and the change it made to the President's assent to amendment Bills.
What to Study: What are the case's full name and popular name? Understand the basic structure doctrine as a limit on Parliament's power under Article 368, and how it overruled Golak Nath. Be able to explain how later cases applied it and added more elements, and how the 42nd Amendment reacted.
What to Study: How did the court treat each of the 24th, 25th and 29th Amendments? Remember what the 24th Amendment inserted, and that one amendment was upheld only in part.
What to Study: What did Article 329A(4), inserted by the 39th Amendment, provide, and whose election disputes did it cover? Understand why the court held it beyond Parliament's amending power. Remember the case's popular name.
What to Study: The 42nd Amendment added two new clauses to Article 368. What did they say? Understand why they were added and which two rulings they responded to.
What to Study: What did the court hold on Article 21, Article 359 and the right to seek a writ of habeas corpus? Remember the Presidential Order of 27 June 1975 and the MISA provision that was upheld. Understand why this ruling is seen as a failure to protect rights.
What to Study: After the 44th Amendment changed Article 359, which rights can no longer be suspended during an Emergency, and under which Articles? Why is the Jabalpur ruling now said to be no longer good law? Know the effect of the 44th Amendment and of the 2017 Puttaswamy judgement.
What to Study: Which earlier ruling did this case overrule, and what did it decide on the Passport Act provision? Understand its four propositions: how Articles 14, 19 and 21 relate, the meaning of personal liberty, the meaning of the right to life, and what makes a procedure valid.
Asked in UPSC PrelimsUPSC 2023
What to Study: Be able to explain the three outcomes of this ruling. These are the arrival of "due process" in Indian interpretation, the "golden triangle" of Articles 14, 19 and 21, and the wider scope of Article 21 in later cases.
What to Study: Why did the court hold that the death penalty for murder does not violate Articles 19 and 21? Understand the "rarest of rare" doctrine: when may the death penalty be given, and what must the court consider about the crime and the criminal?
What to Study: Which changes made by the 42nd Amendment did the court strike down? Remember the three basic features it named in this case.
What to Study: Why would destroying the balance between Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles damage the basic structure? Be able to explain what precedence the 42nd Amendment gave to Directive Principles, and why Parliament cannot use Article 368 to abrogate the Constitution.
What to Study: Which date, linked to the Kesavananda verdict, divides the Ninth Schedule additions? Understand how additions made before that date are treated differently from later ones, and why.
What to Study: Does Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (now Section 144 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita) apply to every religion, and what happens when it clashes with personal law? Remember the ruling on maintenance beyond iddat and the role of Mahr. Understand the court's remark on a uniform civil code.
What to Study: How did the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 respond to Shah Bano? Know how the Danial Latifi case (2001) read this Act, and how its view of maintenance differs from the Act's own rule. What did the Supreme Court say in Mohd. Abdul Samad (2024) about Section 125 for divorced Muslim women?
What to Study: Why was repeated re-promulgation of ordinances in Bihar held unconstitutional? Understand the court's remarks that it was a "fraud on the constitution" and that ordinance power is for extraordinary situations. Remember the Article involved and the Bihar figures (how many ordinances, and for how long they were kept in force).
What to Study: What is the difference between a preventive and a remedial use of Article 32? Understand when the Supreme Court may award compensation (what does "gross and patent" mean?). Remember the case's popular name.
What to Study: How does absolute (no-fault) liability differ from strict liability? Know which principle this case introduced and why it expanded environmental law.
What to Study: Why was paragraph 7 of the Tenth Schedule struck down? Remember the amendment that inserted it, the ratification rule in Article 368(2), and the courts whose powers it excluded (Articles 136, 226 and 227). What is the Speaker's role in deciding disqualification? Is the decision open to judicial review, and on what grounds? What happened to the rest of the Tenth Schedule?
What to Study: What reservation for OBCs under Article 16(4) did the court uphold? Remember its conditions (creamy layer, promotions, the overall ceiling, backlog vacancies) and what it did with the separate 10% order for economically backward sections. How did the 103rd Amendment (upheld in 2022) later bring in such reservation, and how does it relate to the ceiling?
What to Study: Which committee was appointed to identify the creamy layer among OBCs? Which commission was first set up to hear complaints of wrong inclusion or exclusion in the list of backward classes, and what replaced it under Article 338B (102nd Amendment, 2018)?
What to Study: What did each of these five amendments do? Match each one to its purpose and to the ruling it answered, since not all five answered Indra Sawhney.
What to Study: How far did the court extend the right to education under Article 21, and what did it say about Article 41? Understand why capitation fees were held to violate Article 14, and the idea of "teaching shops".
What to Study: How did this case narrow Mohini Jain? Know up to what age free education is a right and what applies after it. Understand how Article 21 was read with Articles 41, 45 and 46, and what the court said about fees in private unaided colleges.
What to Study: What does Article 21A guarantee, and to which children? Remember the three changes the 86th Amendment (2002) made (in Articles 21A, 45 and 51A(k)), and which Act of 2009 gave Article 21A effect.
What to Study: Which earlier case did this ruling overrule? Understand how the meaning of "consultation" in Articles 124(2) and 217(1) changed, whose advice the President must follow in appointing judges, and who must become Chief Justice.
What to Study: How did the collegium system come about? Under which Article did the Third Judges case (1998) reach the court, and how did it change the size of the collegium for the Supreme Court and the High Courts? Remember the Memorandum of Procedure for appointing judges.
What to Study: Understand the five propositions on Article 356. They deal with judicial review of the proclamation, who must prove the justification, whether Article 74(2) blocks scrutiny, the court's power to restore the Assembly and Ministry, and secularism as part of the basic structure.
What to Study: In which states did the court uphold President's Rule, and in which did it declare it invalid? Remember the years, and how the ruling checked misuse of Article 356.
What to Study: On which Articles (more than two) did the court base its ruling on sexual harassment at work? Which international convention did it use to fill the gap in the law? Understand the employer's duty, and why the guidelines applied until a law was made. Remember the Act of 2013 that followed.
What to Study: What did the court direct for the CVC, the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate? Understand what the Single Directive required and why it was struck down. Remember the case's popular name.
What to Study: What did the CVC Act, 2003 give the CVC over the CBI? Remember what the Act did to the Single Directive and what the Supreme Court did to it in 2014. Which later provision of the Prevention of Corruption Act brought back a form of prior approval?
What to Study: Why did the court treat a voter's right to know about candidates as part of Article 19(1)(a)? Understand how casting a vote counts as expression, and why informed voters matter for free and fair elections. Remember the case's popular name.
What to Study: Which five kinds of information did the court require candidates to give? Remember the Election Commission's order of 2003 that put this into effect.
What to Study: What is the unit for deciding who is a minority under Article 30? Understand how admission rules differ for aided and unaided minority institutions, the role of Article 29(2), and the regulation allowed for standards, merit and fair procedure.
What to Study: What does Article 15(5) allow, and which institutions does it cover? Know the exception for minority institutions under Article 30(1). Which 2005 case, along with T.M.A. Pai, led to this amendment?
Asked in UPSC PrelimsUPSC 2023
What to Study: Under which Article is the right to fly the national flag a fundamental right? Know the limit on how the flag may be used.
What to Study: Remember the seven directives on police reform. They cover bodies at state, district and national levels, the selection and tenure of the DGP, tenure for officers on operational duties, and the separation of investigation from law and order.
What to Study: How far have these directives been put into practice? Understand why political interference and weak State Security Commissions and Police Establishment Boards limit their effect.
What to Study: Which amendments did the court uphold, and which Articles did they insert? Understand the conditions it set for reservation in promotions (backwardness, inadequacy of representation, overall efficiency under Article 335, the ceiling and the creamy layer). What did Jarnail Singh (2018) change about backwardness data, representation data and the creamy layer for SCs and STs?
What to Study: Which earlier ruling did this case reaffirm, and which date matters? Understand the question before the court: can Article 31B protect laws from Fundamental Rights? Which test does the court apply to Ninth Schedule laws added after that date?
What to Study: How do active and passive euthanasia differ, and which did the court allow? Remember the safeguards it set in this case, including who may decide to withdraw life support and the role of the High Court and a committee of doctors. What did Common Cause (2018, modified in 2023) change about the right to die with dignity, living wills and Medical Boards?
What to Study: Why did the old rules on a voter's right not to vote fail on secrecy? Understand how Articles 19(1)(a), 21 and 14 support the NOTA option. What effect do NOTA votes have on the result of an election?
What to Study: When and in which elections was NOTA first provided? Remember the states in 2013 and 2014, and the Lok Sabha election of 2014.
What to Study: What did Section 8(4) of the Representation of the People Act allow convicted legislators? Understand why the court struck it down, with reference to Articles 102 and 191, and from which date disqualification now takes effect.
What to Study: How did the government try to undo this ruling, and what became of that attempt?
Asked in UPSC PrelimsUPSC 2015
What to Study: Which three directions did the court give on civil service reform? Remember the follow-up change to the Cadre Rules in 2014.
What to Study: Whom did the court recognise as "third gender"? Understand how it linked self-identified gender to Articles 14 and 21, and what it directed on legal recognition and on reservation.
What to Study: Know the main purposes of the 2019 Act, and its position on discrimination, on recognition and on gender identity.
What to Study: What did Section 66A of the IT Act punish? Understand why the court held that it violates Article 19(1)(a) and is not saved by Article 19(2), and what the court said about the internet's wider reach. What did the same judgement do with Sections 69A and 79?
What to Study: Remember the case's popular names. What happened to the 99th Amendment and the NJAC Act, 2014? Understand which element of the basic structure the court relied on, and which system of appointing judges was restored.
What to Study: What is talaq-e-biddat, and why was it held invalid by a 3:2 majority? Understand which opinion relied on "manifest arbitrariness" under Article 14, and what that opinion said about Section 2 of the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937.
What to Study: Which law followed this ruling, what is its popular name, and what does it prohibit?
Asked in UPSC PrelimsUPSC 2018UPSC 2021UPSC 2024
What to Study: Where does the right to privacy sit in the Constitution? Understand why it is not absolute, and the three-fold test that any invasion of life or personal liberty must meet.
What to Study: Which two earlier cases did Puttaswamy overrule? Remember the 2018 cases that were influenced by it.
Asked in UPSC PrelimsUPSC 2018UPSC 2020
What to Study: What did the court decide on the validity of the Aadhaar Act, and on privacy and surveillance? Which provisions were struck down? Remember the 2019 law that followed.
What to Study: Which rule banning women from the temple was struck down, and which age group did it cover? Understand why the ban breached Articles 14, 21 and 25.
What to Study: What did the review bench do with the case in November 2019? Remember the size of the bench formed afterwards to hear the reference.
What to Study: Which provision on adultery was struck down, and which procedural provision fell with it? Understand why Articles 14, 15 and 21 were breached. Is adultery still a wrong in any form?
What to Study: How far did the court strike down Section 377? Understand which acts were covered and why Articles 14, 15, 19(1)(a) and 21 were breached.
What to Study: Which 2013 case did this ruling overrule? What did Section 377 still cover after this ruling? Note that the Indian Penal Code has since been replaced by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which has no matching provision.
What to Study: To whom did the court award the disputed land? Remember its three directions: the trust, the alternative land for the Waqf Board, and the role given to the Nirmohi Akhara.
What to Study: What is the trust called, and where was the alternative land allotted? Which 2010 High Court ruling did this judgement overturn?
What to Study: Which Articles protect speech and business over the internet, and which Articles allow restrictions? Understand the limits on suspending internet services: temporary use only and the test of proportionality.
What to Study: Did this ruling declare internet access itself a fundamental right? Understand the difference between speech and trade carried on through the internet (protected under Article 19) and a right to internet access. How does this bear on the government's power to shut the internet down?
What to Study: What must parties publish about candidates facing criminal cases, and where? Understand on what basis they must justify choosing such candidates.
What to Study: Which new form did the Election Commission release after this case for the details of candidates with criminal backgrounds?
What to Study: What did the RBI circular direct banks and financial institutions to do about virtual currencies? On what grounds did the court strike it down, and which Article 19 right was involved? Know what the ruling meant for crypto trading and for the need for a legal framework.