The Supreme Court has agreed to review a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) challenging the modifications made to the right to freedom of speech and expression through the First Amendment to the Indian Constitution in 1951. The petitioner claims that this amendment undermines the basic structure doctrine. In the first year of the Constitution’s implementation, certain judicial decisions, such as the Shankari Prasad case, created challenges, particularly regarding the fundamental rights chapter. To address these issues, Parliament enacted the First Constitutional Amendment, introducing Articles 19(2), 31A, and 31B.
Issues in the first year of the Constitution:
• Some courts interpreted Article 19(1)(a), which guarantees the right to freedom of speech and expression, as so broad that individuals were not held accountable even if they advocated violent crimes, including murder. In contrast, other countries with written constitutions allow restrictions on free speech to prevent misuse.
• Article 19(1)(g), which confers the right to practice any profession or business, is subject to reasonable limitations in the “interests of the general public.” While these terms are broad enough to support state-led nationalization schemes, it was considered necessary to add clarity through a modification to Article 19(6).
• Article 31 also presented unforeseen challenges. Despite clauses (4) and (6) of Article 31, agrarian reform laws passed by state legislatures over the previous three years had faced legal delays, prevented their timely execution and affected large populations.
The First Constitutional Amendment sought primarily to modify Article 19 to address the above concerns, as well as to ensure the constitutional validity of land reform laws, particularly zamindari abolition laws, in various states. Additionally, a few minor changes were proposed to other articles to prevent potential future issues.