UPSC Prelims 2018 · Question 5 of 99
UPSC Prelims 2018 question on Ninth Schedule Judicial Review
- ExamUPSC CSE
- Year2018
- PaperGeneral Studies Paper I
- SubjectPolity
- TopicBasic Concepts of Constitution
- DifficultyMedium
- TypeStatement
Consider the following statements:
1. The Parliament of India can place a particular law in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution of India.
2. The validity of a law placed in the Ninth Schedule cannot be examined by any court and no judgement can be made on it.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Show answer
Answer: A. 1 only
Verdict
Only statement 1 is correct, so the answer is (a) 1 only.
Statement by statement
Statement 1 is CORRECT. The Ninth Schedule was added by the First Amendment in 1951 along with Article 31B, to give a protective umbrella to land reform laws. The Supreme Court has upheld Article 31B and Parliament's power to place a law in the Schedule.
Statement 2 is INCORRECT. Such laws enjoy no blanket protection. The Supreme Court has held they remain open to judicial scrutiny, and specifically that laws added after the Kesavananda Bharati judgment of 24 April 1973, which propounded the basic structure doctrine, can be challenged.
Source
Indian Polity by M. Laxmikanth, chapter on Fundamental Rights.
How to crack it
Statement 2 stacks two absolutes, cannot be examined by any court and no judgement can be made. An absolute bar on judicial review is almost always false after 1973, because the basic structure doctrine is the tool the Court reserved to pierce such bars. Flag the words any, no, never and only in a Polity statement and test them against basic structure first.