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Showing contexts for: basic structure constitution in Gvk Inds. Ltd & Anr vs The Income Tax Officer & Anr on 1 March, 2011Matching Fragments
the basic structure - of the Constitution is beyond such powers of Parliament. The power to make changes to the basic structure of the Constitution vests only in the people sitting, as a nation, through its representatives in a Constituent Assembly. (See Keshavanadna Bharati v. State of Kerala17 and I.R. Coelho v.
State of Tamil Nadu18). One of the foundational elements of the concept of basic structure is it would give the stability of purpose, and machinery of government to be able to pursue the constitutional vision in to the indeterminate and unforeseeable future.
52. In Article 245 we find that the words and phrases "make laws" "extra-territorial operation", and "invalidate" have been used in a manner that clearly suggests that the addressees implicated are the legislature, the executive and the judiciary respectively. While Clause (1) uses the verb "make" with respect to laws, thereby signifying the grant of powers, Clause (2) uses the past tense of make, "made", signifying laws that have already been enacted by the Parliament. The subject of Clause (2) of Article 245 is the law made by the Parliament, pursuant to Clause (1) of Article 245, and the object, or purpose, of Clause (2) of Article 245 is to specify that a law so made by the Parliament, for the whole or any part of territory of India, should not be held to be invalid solely on the ground that such laws require extra-territorial operation. The only organ of the state which may invalidate laws is the judiciary. Consequently, the text of Clause (2) of Article 245 should be read to mean that it reduces the general and inherent powers of the judiciary to declare a law ultra-vires only to the extent of that one ground of invalidation. One thing must be noted here. In as much as the judiciary's jurisdiction is in question here, an a-priori, and a strained, inference that is unsupported by the plain meaning of the text may not be made that the powers of the legislature to make laws beyond the pale of judicial scrutiny have been expanded over and above that which has been specified. The learned Attorney General is not only seeking an interpretation of Article 245 wherein the Parliament is empowered to make laws "for" a foreign territory, which we have seen above is impermissible, but also an interpretation that places those vaguely defined laws, which by definition and implication can range over an indefinite, and possibly even an infinite number, of fields beyond judicial scrutiny, even in terms of the examination of their vires. That would be contrary to the basic structure of the Constitution.25 25 Supra note 18.