New Delhi: Kesavananda Bharati, the seer who ensured that the basic structure of India’s Constitution will remain undisturbed through the several amendments that came through the Parliamentary process, providing a long life to India’s democracy and federalism, died yesterday at age 79.
Bharati was seer of the Edneer Mutt in the Kasargod district of Kerala. He ascended the position of seer and head of the mutt when he was a teenager. However, when the Kerala Land Reforms (Amendment) Act 1969 came about, Bharati challenged it in court and finally, in 1973, a 13-judge bench of the Supreme Court gave a landmark judgement in which it was said that the fundamentals of the Constitution cannot be changed. It has remained as the “basic structure” doctrine.
It was a three-year battle for Bharati in court – he moved the top court on March 21, 1970 – which he won and scotched the then Kerala governments’ desire to implement land reforms (distributing land among landless farmers) that would affect certain aspects of the Constitution that would have challenged the very nature of India’s federalism and fundamental rights.
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The contention of Bharati was that while the act would dispose the mutt of its property, it would also deprive many people depending on it from sustenance. The other strong point he had argued was the initiation of three constitutional amendments by the then Indira Gandhi government. These proposed amendments – No. 24, 25 and 29, already passed by Parliament would have put in the hands of Parliament the ability to change fundamental rights, which form the plinth of India’s constitution.
-India Legal Bureau