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25. Finally, it was said that there can be no basic structure of a Constitution divorced from the historical evolution of the precepts and principles on which the Constitution is founded. Any effort to determine the basic structure of the Constitution without keeping a finger on the historical pulse of the Constitution may well lead to substantial injustice. According to him, if the historical approach to the test of basic structure is kept in view, the guarantees and assurances of the privy purses, privileges, etc. granted by the Constitution makers by incorporating Articles 291 and 362 and 366(22) in the Constitution framed by them would, without any doubt or dispute, emerge in their own rights 'as basic features' of the Constitution which cannot be abrogated or annihilated by any Constitutional amendment. What he finally concluded is that the guarantees and assurances of the privy purses, privileges etc. contained in the above three Articles were, in fact, the reflections of the aforesaid virtues of the Constitution makers which are the very virtues which characterized the personality of the Indian Constitution and that the Objects and Reasons of the impugned Amendment clearly establish the mala fide of the Amendment.

(Emphasis supplied)

172. This Court had no occasion to go into the scope of constitutional amendment like the present one. Therefore, all reasons addressed for striking down the presidential order must be confined only to the authority of the President to issue the order under Article 366(22) of the Constitution.

BASIC STRUCTURE

173. This takes us to the power of amendment conferred under Article 368. That power of amendment is unlimited except that the basic structure of the Constitution cannot be amended. What then is the basic structure?

174. In Kesavananda's case (supra), Sikri, C.J. stated as under: Whether Articles 291 and 362, 366(22) The learned Attorney-General said that every provision of the Constitution is .essential; otherwise, it would not have been put in the Constitution. This is true. But this does not place every provision of the Constitution in the same position. The true position is that every provision of the Constitution can be amended provided in the result the basic foundation and structure of the Constitution remains the same. The basic structure may be said to consist of the following features:

175. Commenting on this case and Golaknath's decision, Subba Rao, Ex. C.J.I, in the The two judgments : Golaknath and Kesavananda Bharati (supra) says at page 18: The result is that the Supreme Court by majority declared that the Parliament under the Indian Constitution is not supreme, in that it cannot change the basic structure of the Constitution. It also declared by majority that under certain circumstances, the amendment of the fundamental rights other than the right to property would affect the basic structure and therefore would be void. The question whether the amendment of the fundamental right to property would under some circumstances affect the basic structure of. the Constitution is not free from doubt; the answer depends upon the view the Supreme Court takes hereafter of the impact of the opinion of Mathew, Beg, Dwivedi and Chandrachud, JJ.-the fundamental rights are the basic features of the Constitution on the opinion of the six judges, who held that the core of the fundamental rights is part of the basic structure of the Constitution. One possible view is that together they form a clear majority on the content of the basic structure; another possible view is that their opinion should be read along with their finding that the entire Constitution except perhaps the bare machine of Government, could be repealed by amendment