On this day 50 years ago, the Supreme Court of India delivered what would come to be known as the greatest case in independent India. Thirteen judges of the Supreme Court heard the case of Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala for 68 days – the longest proceedings ever in the apex court – and delivered a judgement which spanned nearly 800 pages. The case ascertained the constitutional supremacy of the judiciary by propounding the basic structure doctrine.The case arose for consideration at a time when parliament and the judiciary had locked horns. The case dealt with the issue of whether constitutional amendments were beyond the scope of judicial review. In other words, can parliament make unfettered changes to the Constitution, and can those changes be scrutinised in a court of law? In post-independence India, there was a continuing conflict on the extent to which parliament could amend the Constitution. The crucial question was, who had the ultimate say over the Constitution, parliament or the judiciary? This saga reached its zenith during the Indira Gandhi regime in the early 1970s.In 1963, the Kerala Land Reform Act was passed. This was the beginning of the protracted legal battle that would culminate with propounding the basic structure doctrine. A lawsuit was filed by Kesavananda Bharati, the senior-most seer of the Edneer Mutt, who contested the Kerala government’s move to take over control of the mutt’s property. Renowned lawyer Nani Palkivala is credited for the lawsuit evolving into a constitutional challenge against the parliamentary power to alter the Constitution.Also read: History Warns That Altering a Constitution’s Basic Structure Leads Down a Dark PathIn what was merely a property dispute, Palkhivala expanded the scope of the challenge by arguing that the Constitution had a framework that was important to its character and could not be altered by Parliament. On the other hand, the Government of India contended that the Constitution lacked a fundamental framework and that Parliament could modify any and every portion of it, including fundamental rights.At the heart of the arguments was Article 368 of the Constitution, which established the methodology for amending the Constitution. The petitioner asserted that Article 368 did not grant parliament unrestricted power to modify the Constitution, whilst the government contended that the clause gave parliament the absolute authority to amend any portion of the Constitution. Palkhivala ingeniously argued that Article 368 is a creature of the Constitution that cannot be transformed into its master.The apex court, with a wafer-thin ratio of 7-6, held that while parliament had the authority to amend the Constitution, it could not change its “basic structure”. The decision established the idea of basic structure, which states that some cardinal elements of the Constitution, such as fundamental rights and the notion of federalism, are beyond the reach of parliament’s amending power. The decision affirmed the judiciary’s independence and its position as the Constitution’s custodian. It established the notion that the judiciary had the authority to assess constitutional changes and to overturn them if they contradicted the Constitution’s core structure. It limited the executive and legislative branches’ power and provided a legal basis for challenging the government’s actions and policies. It also bolstered the status of opposition parties and civil society organisations.Although the court held that the Constitution has an entrenched basic structure, the judges differed on what exactly constitutes this basic structure. Justice O. Chinnappa Reddy, in his book The Court and the Constitution of India: Summits and Shallows, fittingly remarked, “Since there are no signposts signalling basic features of the Constitution, every attempt to discover a basic feature becomes a ‘voyage of discovery’.”Also read: Why Uncertainty Still Surrounds the Birth of the ‘Basic Structure Doctrine’Although propounded in the context of a property dispute case, the basic structure doctrine has been invoked in a myriad of cases dealing with the decriminalisation of homosexuality, reservation, right to privacy, due process of law, separation of powers, judicial appointments, etc.With the NDA government having a brute majority in parliament for the past ten years, the discourse on the necessity of the basic structure and what it constitutes has come into the limelight yet again. Recently Vice-President of India Jagdeep Dhankar termed the Kesavanananda Bharati judgement as a ‘galat parampara (wrong precedent)’ and remarked that the basic structure doctrine diluted parliamentary sovereignty. His statement came in the backdrop of a raging debate on the issue of appointments to the higher judiciary, with the government questioning the current Collegium system and the Supreme Court defending it. A month later, Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud defended the basic structure, terming it as the north star that “guides and gives certain direction to the interpreters and implementers of the Constitution when the path ahead is convoluted“.The Supreme Court is yet to hear several important political cases in which the Union government has high stakes, such as the challenges to electoral bonds, CAA/NRC, dilution of Article 370, etc. Given that these cases have significant implications on the basic structure of the Constitution, will the government attempt to limit the scope of the basic structure doctrine or try to negate it all together by seeking a review of the Kesavananda Bharati judgement? Only time will tell.Vishnu Bandarupalli and Rashika Bodh are students at the NALSAR University of Law.