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An estimated 4-minute read

Directive Principles of State Policy: An Analytical Approach – VI: Limiting Principles and Conclusion

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S0 far, we have argued that the Directive Principles of State Policy ought to play a role as structuring values, which give concrete meaning to the abstractly-worded fundamental rights in Part III. But in that case, is there any difference that now remains between fundamental rights and directive principles, one may well ask – apart from the fact that laws cannot be struck down for violating the DPSPs? The Court answered that question in its 1982 case of Ranjan Dwivedi v. Union of India, well into the heyday of the Directive Principles era. Article 39A mandated the State to provide equal justice and free legal aid. In Ranajn Dwivedi, the petitioner’s claim to a State-paid counsel engaged at a fees commensurate with the fees the State was paying to its own counsel was rejected, the Court holding that:

“As is clear from the terms of Art. 39A, the social objective of equal justice and free legal aid has to be implemented by suitable legislation or by formulating schemes for free legal aid. The remedy of the petitioner, if any, lies by way of making an application before the learned Additional Sessions Judge.”

 In other words, the Court understood that shaping the State’s fiscal policy was most definitely beyond its remit. A similar set of concerns guided the Court’s decision in Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation v. Nawab Khan Gulab Khan. In that case, the Court invoked Articles 38, 39 and 46 to read into the right to life the right to shelter, and a correlative constitutional duty upon State instrumentalities to “provide adequate facilities and opportunities by distributing its wealth and resources for settlement of life and erection of shelter over [indigent persons’] heads to make the right to life meaningful, effective and fruitful.” In the same breath, however, it also held that “courts cannot give direction to implement the scheme with a particular budget as it being the executive function of the local bodies and the State to evolve their annual budget.” Thus, the Directive Principles played a structuring role in determining the contours of the right to life under Article 21, but insofar as enforcement of that right appeared to require decisions that, according to classical separation of powers models, belong to the legislative or executive branches, the Court said, thus far and no further.

This primarily institutional concern is reflected most vividly in the history of the right to education through the 1990s and the 2000s. In a series of cases such as Mohini Jain and Unnikrishnan v. State of AP, the Court invoked the Directive Principles to read into Article 21’s guarantee of a right to life, a right to education as well – but conspicuously refrained from going any further into an issue that would have profound economic and social implications, not to mention a massive reorientation of budgetary priorities. Eventually, it was the legislature that amended the Constitution to introduce Article 21A, codifying the right to education; and the Court’s task was to uphold the validity of legislation passed under that provision that imposed certain economic burdens upon private schools.

Conclusion

It has now become almost routine for the Supreme Court to invoke Part IV in its decisions – as routine as Articles 14 and 21. With the increasing role of the Directive Principles, the need for judicial discipline cannot be overstated. If the DPSPs are interpreted to mean everything, then they will end up meaning nothing. This series of posts has attempted to use constitutional text, history, precedent and philosophy to tether the DPSPs to a firm conceptual foundation, offering both a faithful description of existing practice, as well as prescriptive recommendations for the road ahead.

The Directive Principles, I have argued, serve three distinct roles in judicial interpretation. First, legislation enacted in service of the Directive Principles meets the “public interest” threshold in a fundamental rights challenge (importantly, its reasonableness must then be examined, and not on the touchstone of the Directive Principles). Secondly, if legislation is intelligibly susceptible to more than one interpretation, then the meaning that corresponds more closely to the DPSPs is to be preferred over others (although, as we discussed, the Court is yet to clarify the standard applicable to this enquiry). And thirdly, the DPSPs play a structuring role in selecting the specific conceptions that are the concrete manifestations of the abstract concepts embodied in the fundamental rights chapter. This is the best way to understand the Court’s dictum that fundamental rights “ought to be interpreted in light of the DPSPs.” There is thus a clearly delineated role for the Directive Principles in constitutional analysis.

The limits to this role are twofold: first, the Court may not strike down legislation for non-compliance with the DPSPs; and secondly, the Court may not incorporate the DPSPs to a point that requires it stepping outside its designated role under classical separation of powers theory – making policy choices and budgetary allocations (of course, the Court has not shrunk from this role more generally).

Such an approach, I suggest – although complex – is both intellectually defensible, and constitutionally faithful. Importantly, it ensures against the judicial drift that has blighted Articles 14 and 21, and is threatening to blight Part IV, with its recent, indiscriminate usage. Only time will tell, however, whether the Court follows this path.

Original author: gautambhatia1988

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