Landmark Case Law

Twenty cases every serious aspirant should know beyond a one-line label — facts, holding, and why it matters for the broader syllabus.

1. A.K. Gopalan v. State of Madras (1950). Gopalan, detained under the Preventive Detention Act, 1950, challenged his detention as violating Articles 19, 21 and 22. The Court held Article 21's "procedure established by law" only requires some enacted procedure, however harsh, to be followed — it does not import American-style "due process" review of whether that procedure is fair. Articles 14, 19 and 21 were treated as watertight compartments. Significance: set the initial, narrow, literalist tone for Article 21 that would dominate for nearly three decades, until reversed by Maneka Gandhi.

2. State of Madras v. Champakam Dorairajan (1951). The Madras government's caste-based communal reservation in professional college admissions was challenged under Article 29(2). The Court struck it down, holding a Directive Principle cannot override an enforceable Fundamental Right. Significance: triggered the First Amendment (1951), inserting Article 15(4) and the Ninth Schedule — the opening move of the entire FR–DPSP conflict.

3. Shankari Prasad v. Union of India (1951) & Sajjan Singh v. State of Rajasthan (1965). Both challenged constitutional amendments (the First and Seventeenth respectively) as violating Fundamental Rights. The Court held a constitutional amendment is not "law" under Article 13(2), so Parliament's Article 368 power to amend Part III was unrestricted. Significance: gave Parliament a free hand to amend FRs, a position later reversed in Golaknath.

4. Commissioner, HRE, Madras v. Sri Shirur Mutt (1954). A religious mutt challenged State control over the management of its endowment under the Madras Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act. The Court distinguished "essential religious practices" (protected under Article 26(b), beyond State control) from secular administrative/financial matters (regulable by ordinary law). Significance: created the enduring "essential religious practices" test that continues to decide religious-freedom cases (including Sabarimala) to this day.

5. I.C. Golaknath v. State of Punjab (1967). Punjab land-reform legislation was challenged as violating the petitioners' property rights under Article 19(1)(f), after earlier amendments (1st, 4th, 17th) had placed such laws in the Ninth Schedule. An eleven-judge bench, 6:5, held Fundamental Rights occupy a "transcendental position" beyond Parliament's amending reach — a constitutional amendment is "law" for Article 13 purposes and cannot abridge Part III. Significance: provoked Parliament's 24th and 25th Amendments and set the stage for Kesavananda Bharati.

6. Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala (1973). Swami Kesavananda Bharati, head of a Kerala mutt, challenged Kerala land-reform laws affecting mutt property, which drew in a challenge to the 24th, 25th and 29th Amendments themselves. A thirteen-judge bench, 7:6, overruled Golaknath to hold Parliament can amend any part of the Constitution including Fundamental Rights, but cannot use that power to alter the Constitution's "basic structure". Significance: the single most important constitutional-law judgment in Indian history; the Basic Structure doctrine has since been the ultimate limit on the amending power, invoked in nearly every major amendment-validity case since.

7. Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India (1978). The government impounded Maneka Gandhi's passport without giving reasons, under the Passports Act. She challenged this as violating Articles 14, 19 and 21. The Court held "procedure established by law" under Article 21 must itself be fair, just and reasonable, and that Articles 14, 19 and 21 are interlinked, not isolated — the "golden triangle". Significance: overruled Gopalan's narrow reading and opened the door to the entire subsequent expansion of Article 21 into privacy, dignity, livelihood, environment, and more.

8. Minerva Mills v. Union of India (1980). Minerva Mills, a sick textile undertaking nationalised under a 1974 Act, challenged the 42nd Amendment's changes to Articles 31C and 368 (unlimited amending power immune from judicial review; DPSPs given blanket primacy over Articles 14/19). The Court struck down both changes, holding limited amending power and judicial review are themselves part of the basic structure, and that harmony between FRs and DPSPs — not the primacy of either — is a basic feature. Significance: the definitive modern statement on the FR–DPSP relationship, and a reaffirmation/refinement of Kesavananda's basic structure doctrine.

9. Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation (1985). Pavement and slum dwellers in Bombay faced eviction without notice under the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act. They argued eviction would deprive them of their livelihood, violating Article 21. The Court agreed that the right to livelihood is an integral facet of the right to life, though it ultimately permitted eviction subject to fair procedure. Significance: a foundational case reading economic/social entitlements into Article 21, part of the post-Maneka Gandhi expansion.

10. Indra Sawhney v. Union of India (1992). Challenged the V.P. Singh government's decision to implement the Mandal Commission's 27% OBC reservation in central government jobs. A nine-judge bench upheld OBC reservation but capped total reservations at 50% (subject to extraordinary exceptions), introduced the "creamy layer" exclusion, and held reservation in promotions was impermissible (later reversed by constitutional amendment for SC/ST promotions). Significance: the definitive modern framework for Article 16(4) reservation law.

11. Unni Krishnan, J.P. v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1993). Challenged capitation fees charged by private professional colleges. The Court held the right to education up to age 14 is implicit in Article 21 (read with DPSP Article 41/45), though it is not an unqualified/unlimited right, and struck down capitation fees. Significance: directly precipitated the 86th Amendment's insertion of Article 21A as an explicit Fundamental Right in 2002.

12. Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan (1997). Bhanwari Devi, a social worker in Rajasthan, was gang-raped in reprisal for her work against child marriage; the absence of any law on workplace sexual harassment led women's groups to petition the Supreme Court. In the absence of specific legislation, the Court laid down binding guidelines ("Vishaka guidelines") for prevention of sexual harassment at the workplace, invoking Articles 14, 19(1)(g) and 21, and India's international treaty obligations under CEDAW. Significance: a landmark instance of judicial law-making to fill a legislative vacuum, later codified into the POSH Act, 2013; also a leading horizontal-application case, since it bound private employers directly.

13. T.M.A. Pai Foundation v. State of Karnataka (2002). An eleven-judge bench examined the extent of the State's power to regulate private (including minority) unaided educational institutions under Articles 19(1)(g), 26 and 30. It held such institutions have a right to autonomy in administration but are subject to reasonable regulatory measures to ensure standards and prevent maladministration, and minority institutions cannot be regulated so heavily as to lose their "minority character". Significance: the governing framework for private and minority education law ever since, generating extensive follow-on litigation (Islamic Academy, P.A. Inamdar) on admissions and fee regulation.

14. I.R. Coelho v. State of Tamil Nadu (2007). Tamil Nadu land-ceiling legislation, inserted into the Ninth Schedule, was challenged notwithstanding Article 31B's blanket immunity. A nine-judge bench held that any law inserted into the Ninth Schedule after 24 April 1973 (the date of the Kesavananda Bharati judgment) is not automatically immune — it remains open to challenge if it violates the basic structure, particularly Fundamental Rights forming part of that structure (Articles 14, 19, 21). Significance: closed off what had become a favourite legislative escape route (dumping controversial laws into the Ninth Schedule) from judicial review.

15. Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017). Petitions challenging the Aadhaar scheme's mandatory biometric collection raised the threshold question of whether a fundamental right to privacy exists at all (earlier, smaller benches had disagreed). A nine-judge bench unanimously held privacy is intrinsic to the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21, and to the freedoms guaranteed in Part III more broadly, though subject to reasonable restriction on grounds of legitimate State interest, proportionality, and procedural safeguards. Significance: the foundational modern privacy judgment, subsequently applied to strike down/read down provisions in Aadhaar-linked laws and to inform data-protection legislation.

16. Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India (2018). A group of petitioners, including a Bharatanatyam dancer, challenged Section 377 of the IPC, which criminalised "carnal intercourse against the order of nature", to the extent it criminalised consensual homosexual acts between adults. A five-judge bench read down Section 377, decriminalising consensual same-sex conduct between adults, holding it violated Articles 14, 15, 19 and 21 (dignity, privacy, non-discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation as an attribute of "sex"). Significance: a major dignity/privacy/equality judgment building directly on Puttaswamy, and a leading example of Article 21's continually expanding content.

17. Indian Young Lawyers Association v. State of Kerala — the Sabarimala case (2018). Discussed in detail above under Articles 25–28: a 4:1 majority struck down the exclusion of women aged 10–50 from the Sabarimala temple as not an "essential" religious practice and as violative of Article 25's guarantee to women. Significance: tested the outer limits of the Shirur Mutt "essential practices" doctrine and triggered a subsequent reference to a larger bench on the doctrine's scope across faiths.

18. Common Cause v. Union of India (2018). A registered society sought recognition of a "living will" (advance medical directive) and the right to refuse life support in a terminal, vegetative condition. A five-judge bench recognised passive euthanasia and the validity of living wills/advance directives as part of the right to die with dignity under Article 21, laying down detailed guidelines pending legislation. Significance: extended Article 21's dignity jurisprudence to end-of-life autonomy.

19. Selvi v. State of Karnataka (2010). Challenged the involuntary use of narco-analysis, polygraph and brain electrical activation profile (BEAP) tests on accused persons during criminal investigation. The Court held such compelled techniques amount to testimonial compulsion, violating Article 20(3)'s protection against self-incrimination, and also implicate personal liberty and privacy under Article 21; such tests can only be conducted with free, informed consent. Significance: a leading modern application of Article 20(3), and an early building block toward the privacy jurisprudence later consolidated in Puttaswamy.

20. Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015). Challenged Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, which criminalised sending "grossly offensive" or "menacing" information by computer/communication device, after its use to arrest individuals for social-media posts. The Court struck down Section 66A in its entirety as unconstitutionally vague, overbroad, and having a chilling effect on free speech disproportionate to any Article 19(2) restriction ground. Significance: the leading Indian judgment on online free speech, and a strong reaffirmation that vagueness/overbreadth alone can render a speech-restricting law unconstitutional regardless of any "reasonable restriction" label attached to it.

(A fuller one-liner compendium of Supreme Court cases — including many beyond Part III — is Book 3 in this series.)

Memory hook — the amending-power spine, "GOOD CATS SANG GOLDEN KITES MADE MARVELOUS PHOTOS": The eight pivotal cases that trace the FR–DPSP/amending-power story, in order, hide in this sentence: Good (Gopalan, 1950) Cats (Champakam Dorairajan, 1951) Sang (Shankari Prasad/Sajjan Singh, 1951/65) Golden (Golaknath, 1967) Kites (Kesavananda Bharati, 1973) Made (Maneka Gandhi, 1978) Marvelous (Minerva Mills, 1980) Photos (Puttaswamy, 2017). Say the sentence, and each word's initial hands you the next case, in the correct chronological order.

Memory hook — the modern-dignity cluster, "COOL PUTTU NAVIGATES SABARIMALA'S COMMON SELFIE, SHREYA": For the newer, rights-expansion cases clustered 2007–2018, chain them as: Coelho (2007) → Puttaswamy (2017) → Navtej Singh Johar (2018) → Sabarimala/IYLA (2018) → Common Cause (2018) → Selvi (2010, out of strict date order but grouped here by theme) → Shreya Singhal (2015) — a run of cases where the Court kept widening dignity, privacy, autonomy and free speech.

Practice Recall: Before moving to the Rapid-Fire table, try to name the case that (a) first read privacy into Article 21, (b) invented the Basic Structure doctrine, and (c) restored the FR–DPSP "balance" after the 42nd Amendment — without looking back.

Answer: (a) Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017); (b) Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala (1973); (c) Minerva Mills v. Union of India (1980).

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