Click to play videoNew Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday specified the parameters within which the Legislature or the Government can exercise their power to use the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution to take away the powers of the courts to examine the validity of a law.
The Apex Court ruled that laws placed under Ninth Schedule after April 24, 1973 shall be open to challenge in court if they violated fundamental rights guaranteed under Articles 14, 19, 20 and 21 of the Constitution.
The top court also said that if the law put in the Ninth Schedule abridges or abrogates fundamental rights resulting in the violation of the basic structure of the Constitution, such laws have to be invalidated.
A nine-judge Constitutional Bench, headed by Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal, which delivered the ruling, was unanimous on the verdict on the competence of Parliament to put any law under the Ninth Schedule and, thus, beyond judicial scrutiny.
The Ninth Schedule was created by a Constitution Amendment in 1951 by former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru to push land reforms. The basic purpose of the schedule was to abolish zamindari system.
But with the passage of time, the Ninth Schedule has become a laundry bag, into which all laws with a spot on them have been tucked away in order to avoid judicial scrutiny.
Till date, the norm has been that the Supreme Court is the final interpreter of the law and its word regarding the validity of a law is final. Only land reform laws were supposed to be included in the Ninth Schedule, but in the recent times governments have included several controversial legislations under it.
In recent times, it was misused widely by governments. Not just land reforms laws, the Ninth Schedule today includes several controversial legislation like the 69 per cent reservation law of Tamil Nadu, which violates the Apex Court's 50 per cent ceiling on quotas.
What is Ninth Schedule? |
 The 9th Schedule was included in the Indian Constitution by the Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951, along with Article 31 B. The objective of the schedule is to immunise certain acts and regulations from a challenge on the ground of violation of fundamental rights under Articles 14, and 19 of the Constitution. Thus, its purpose was to deprive the courts of the power to challenge the validity of the acts passed by the legislature. |
| Article 31B, which gives blanket protection to all items in the 9th Schedule, is also retrospective in nature. So, even if a statute which has already been declared unconstitutional by a court of law is included within the schedule, it is deemed to be constitutional from the date of its inception. (Source: www.indlaw.com) |
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