ABSTRACT
By drawing on the recent judgements ascertaining that liberty, equality and fraternity are too fundamental to the 1950 Constitution to be fiddled with, the chapter reconfirms the main theme of the book. With an analytical account of some of the recently delivered significant judicial pronouncements, the chapter upholds the contention that the core liberal values of liberty, equality and freedom can never be belittled since it adversely affects the basic constitutional identity that India as a polity unambiguously represents. What is emphasized here is the idea that constitutional identity needs to be safeguarded and, in this respect, the role that political institutions play, especially the judiciary, is of immense significance. A careful perusal of judiciary’s contribution shows, in other words, how, being the custodian of the Constitution, it has upheld the fundamental sociocultural and political values from which the 1950 Constitution derives its sustenance. There are occasions however when India’s judiciary succumbed to the executive diktat, especially during the 1975-77 Emergency; otherwise, there are not many examples showing that the judiciary failed to discharge its role in accordance with its constitutional obligations. As shown in this chapter, India’s judiciary invokes the cardinal constitutional principles, espoused by the founding fathers, to reconfirm that practices denying justice and freedom to the citizens are ultra vires to the Constitution. Besides its empirical values, this chapter also stands out because it makes an argument which is complementary to one of the main themes of the book, namely India’s constitutional identity is not static, but is regularly reinvented by judicial interventions as well. By upholding the core principles of constitutionalism, India’s Supreme Court not only interprets, but also provides definite directions to future legislative designs. It has therefore a critical role in shaping India’s constitutional identity, which is also an outcome of an ideational struggle in which multiple actors coalesce to step out either for change or sustenance of the system. This also confirms the argument that for a persuasive discussion of India’s constitutional identity, one needs to be sensitive to the dialectical interconnection between what the Constitution upholds as sacrosanct principles and their acceptance by the governed.
