[Music] hello everyone I am anarch nakade and you're watching live vlog live law is an online legal news portal that brings you news from courts all across the country in order to stay updated please subscribe to our Channel in today's video we will be discussing what is widely considered one of the most important cases and precedence in the history of Independent India it is very definitely the longest case proceeding to ever happen in any case in the country the case Was Heard by the Supreme Court for a total of 68 days and the Judgment in it was delivered on 24th of April 1973. exactly 50 years ago today on this date the importance and impact of this judgment is so clear that the Chief Justice of India Dy chandrachood announced a webpage dedicated to the Judgment that would help researchers across the world to learn more about it hence we at livelaw thought it would be good to bring you a detailed understanding of the case because it is a turning point in history that defines us today many of our regular viewers may know that when we usually report on a story we are very specific about the number of Judges pronouncing the judgment the reason for this is twofold the first is because the Supreme Court is a court of record which means that every Judgment of the Supreme Court that interprets the Constitution is the law of the land any case that is similar to that case or has the application of principles mentioned in the case will be similar in the future second because the number of Judges that are hearing the case will determine the strength of a judgment for example a judgment by a five judge bench will be binding on a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court is a judgment passed after a 13-judge bench hoarded the largest ever to be comprised in the Supreme Court of India so what was the issue and why did it need to be heard by 13 judges for 68 days the answer is a little bit of a history lesson after Independence since our country had a feudal system large Parcels of land were owned by a few people the Kerala land reforms Act of 1963 was a progressive legislation which restricted the area of land which one can own based on the Kerala land reforms act the government took over the land of such big land owners for the purposes of distribution to the landless people in other words the tellers of the land were made the owners of the land one adenir mutt at the time headed by Swami keshavananda bharti owned one such large area of land and their land was to be taken away under the land reforms Act so keshavananda bharti a priest and the head of the Eden near mud challenged the constitutionality of the Kerala land reforms act saying the right to property is a fundamental right and the government cannot take away his property he also challenged this decision of the government on the basis that the land reforms act infringed on its fundamental right to equality the right to life and the right to manage religious affairs but the issue was slightly more complicated than that you see the power to take away the land under these Land Reform acts was protected by Constitutional Amendments the 24th the 25th and the 29th constitutional amendment to be exact in our Constitution Article 368 gives power to the parliament to amend the Constitution so for Swami keshavananda bharti to succeed in the court he would have to challenge all three of these amendments to the Constitution then the question arose what can be the limitation or what is the extent that these power to amend the Constitution can be exercised by the Parliament can the Constitution be amended completely by exercising this power by the parliament before going further we should get to know these amendments to start with the 24th Amendment through this amendment to the Constitution the parliament gave itself the power to amend any part or any provision of the Constitution the 25th Amendment act allowed the parliament to further curtail the right to property which was a fundamental right at the time and most importantly in relation to the keshavananda bharti case the parliament introduced the 29th Amendment Act this act put the land reforms act in the ninth schedule the effect of this was that the Supreme Court cannot review any laws in the ninth schedule and so the Supreme Court would not have been able to review the land reforms act either we urge you to remember the context of the nine schedule because this small detail will be important later in the video since Kerala land reforms acts touch touched upon the right to property which was taken away by the Constitutional Amendments also challenged the Constitutional Amendments which enabled the Kerala land reforms act to take away the adenir mutt's land the final question before The Supreme Court was whether the Parliament can amend the Constitution to take away the right to property which was a fundamental right at that point of time the Supreme Court in an earlier case which is popularly known as golakhnats versus state of Punjab had stated that the fundamental rights of citizens cannot be taken away by way of Constitutional Amendments by the parliament the Judgment was delivered by an 11-judge bench this is why the Supreme Court now had to form a 13-judge bench to hear keshavananda bharti versus state of Kerala more than 100 cases were read before the court during the course of these arguments which went on for 68 days then the union government took a stand before the court that the parliament had the complete and absolute power to amend the Constitution the issue then became whether there can be a judicial review of parliament's power to amend the Constitution absolutely finally the court overruled the golakhnath's case and held that Parliament has the power to amend even the fundamental rights in the Constitution and upheld the 24th Amendment but there is a caveat here what is the extent of power is the power unlimited the court answered this question by saying that the constitution has something called the basic structure basic structure is not defined in the Constitution but is understood to be the essence of the Constitution after keshavananda bharti the Supreme Court identified many aspects of the Constitution which is known as the basic structure such as democracy the independence of Judiciary secularism and the principles of equality Etc that means tomorrow even if a party has an absolute majority which means the party with complete control of the rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha cannot amend the basic structure of the democratic character of our country and make it a dictatorial government that is the basic structure Doctrine the court also later upheld its power to hold a judicial review of all laws including the laws in the ninth schedule if they violate the basic structure of the Constitution this decision was made in another case in 2007 but the application of review of nine schedule laws was done after 24th of April 1973. the date of the keshavananda case that's all we have for you in this video we hope you found this video informative and if you did please leave a like also tell us in the comments if you would like a much more detailed breakdown of the keshavananda bharti case don't forget to subscribe to our Channel and hit the Bell icon for notifications thank you