The 44th Amendment Act has opened a Pandora’s Box and the judiciary will take years to

explain fully the implications of this amendment. Following are some of the problems that
would need clarification from judiciary:
1. Whether as a result of deletion of Article 19(1)(f), the right to property has now become a
natural right?
Although there is a strong case may in favour of right to property being a natural right, as a
result of explicit deletion of Article 19(1) (f) it would not only be difficult to persuade the
Supreme Court to accept this view, but well near impossible.
2. If a law depriving a person of his personal liberty or liberty ought to be reasonable law
and the procedure must be 'fair, just and reasonable', whether the law depriving a person
of his property must also be reasonable law?
If the court were to approach the right to property by striking a balance between rights and
directive principles as being “fair, just and reasonable” then greater protection to the right to
property and it may be a right that would exist for the greater common good.

Conclusion

The constitution was amended in the year 1951 for the first time. This amendment led to
several modifications in the fundamental rights and started the era of land reform through
constitutional mechanism. It has introduced .two new articles namely 31A and 31B and the
infamous ninth schedule so as to make the laws acquiring zamindars unchallengeable in the
Court of law. This was because of the land reform legislations were being challenged before
various high courts like Patna, Nagpur, Allahabad etc on the ground of inconsistency with the
fundamental rights specially Article 14..But the High Court varied in their opinions. These
kinds of litigations were causing delay in the process of agrarian reforms which was supposed
to be speedy. Therefore it was thought to bypass these wasteful litigations in order to give
true effect to the land reform process. In this project the main focus was the constitutional
validity of Articles 31A, 31B and 31C. It was strongly argued against the protective nature of
these articles which exclude all possibilities of challenge to the laws included under the
shield. It was argued in litigations that such shield will violate certain fundamental rights
enshrined under part IIII of the constitution
The validity of the article 31A was challenged stating that it fetters the fundamental rights
and is therefore contrary to the basic structure of the constitution. But the Court rejected this
by saying that every case where the protection of the fundamental right is withdrawn can’t be
something that is damaging the basic structure. the Court referred to the historical view of the
Constitution 1st Amendment Act and said that the 1st amendment was aimed in removing the
social and economic disparities in the agricultural sector. But while removing wide disparities
it is impossible for any government to remove all the disparities without causing certainn
hardship to a classs of people who are also entitled to equal treatment under the law. It is thus
concluded that the 1st amendment of the constitution does not violate any basic structure of
the constitution.

The basic structure of the constitution as a mandate can be achieved only through the
permissible means of the objectives set out in part III of the constitution and these
reservations cannot be in contravention to the mandates of the directive principles of state
policy. In other words, the mandatory ends set out in Part IV can be achieved only through
those means which are consistent with the fundamental rights conferred by Part III. The
discussion in the project focused on the constitutional validity of the Article 31C as amended
by the 42nd Amendment does not, in fact cannot be allowed to stand as if it is allowed then it
will confer an unrestricted license on the legislature and the executive, both at the Centre and
in the States, to destroy democracy and establish a totally authoritarian regime in the
democratic and socialist pattern of the Indian fabric. It’s a known fact that all legislative
action and every of the governmental action has to be related directly or indirectly, to some
directive principle of State policy in order to fulfil its purpose under the constitution. The
final words of the author in concluding the above discussion would be that if Article 31C was
allowed to stand on its own over the grave of the democratic and socialist fabric then the
protection of this amended article will be available to every legislative action under the sun,
resulting into a society that we cannot imagine, this is because article 31C abrogates the right
to equality guaranteed by Article 14, which is the very foundation of a republican form of
government and is by itself a basic feature of the Constitution. So it is concluded that if
article 31C is allowed to stand then that would result into the complete failure of the basic
spirit of the constitution makers and therefore in violation to the basic structure of the
constitution of India.
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Wadhwa Nagpur.
3. Basu DD, Commentary on the Constitution of India, 8th edn 2008, Vol. 3 Lexis Nexis
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