Courts have the power to examine the constitutional validity of legislation and executive action; a law may be struck down if it violates a fundamental right or is beyond the legislative competence of the enacting body.
Explanation
Application examples
Scenario
State Parliament enacts the Minority Faith Protection Act, which criminalizes any speech that ridicules or demeans a religious minority. A journalist is prosecuted under this law for publishing a critical opinion piece about certain religious practices. The journalist challenges the law as violating the fundamental right to freedom of expression.
Analysis
The court must first determine whether the state legislature had competence to enact criminal law—yes, this falls within the state's concurrent jurisdiction on criminal matters. Second, the court examines whether the law infringes the fundamental right to freedom of expression, which is guaranteed but not absolute. Third, the court applies the test for reasonable restriction: is the limitation imposed by law, in the interests of a legitimate state objective (public order, morality, religious harmony), and is it necessary and proportionate? The law here may fail the proportionality test if it criminalizes good-faith criticism rather than targeting only hate speech or incitement to violence.
Outcome
The law would likely be struck down as unconstitutional, or at minimum declared void as applied to the journalist's speech, because the restriction is broader than necessary to achieve its objective and chills protected expression. The judgment would nullify the law prospectively, and the journalist could seek compensation for wrongful prosecution.
Scenario
The Union Government issues an executive order directing all state governments to implement a centralized curriculum in schools, superseding state control over education. A state government argues that education is primarily a state matter and the order exceeds the Union's executive power.
Analysis
Judicial review here focuses on the distribution of powers between Union and State under the constitutional scheme. Education is in the concurrent list, meaning both Parliament and state legislatures can legislate on it, but the executive power must correspond to the legislative competence. An executive order cannot create a power the Union legislature does not possess or override state legislative authority. The court examines whether the order was issued under a valid constitutional or statutory power. If the Union had passed legislation authorizing the measure, the analysis shifts to whether that legislation itself was within Parliament's competence.
Outcome
If the executive order lacks backing in valid legislation and invades state territory, it would be struck down as ultra vires the Union's executive power. If backed by a valid Union law, the state's challenge would fail unless the law itself violates a fundamental right or the Constitution's federal scheme.
Scenario
Parliament enacts the Reservation Enhancement Act, increasing the reservation quota for a particular social group from 27% to 50% across all educational institutions. An unreserved category candidate argues this violates the fundamental right to equality because it reduces merit-based access beyond what can be justified.
Analysis
This tests the limits of reasonable classification and constitutional amendment power. Reservations are constitutionally permissible as a means of substantive equality, but there may be an implied ceiling (courts have suggested no more than 50% in aggregate) to preserve the merit and viability of institutions. The question is whether Parliament, in exercising its power to enact ordinary legislation on reservations, has crossed into unreasonableness or whether only a constitutional amendment could achieve this change. Additionally, the candidate must show not just that the law disadvantages them, but that it violates a fundamental right—equality does not mean equal outcome but rather equal treatment and rational classification.
Outcome
If the quota increase is by ordinary legislation, courts might strike it down as violating the ceiling principle and the right to equality if it is demonstrably unreasonable. If achieved through constitutional amendment, courts would likely uphold it unless it destroyed the basic structure of the Constitution (a complex inquiry). The candidate would lose unless able to show the change violates the unamendable core of the Constitution.
Scenario
A state legislature enacts a law banning the slaughter of cows, a practice held sacred by the Hindu majority. Muslim and Christian communities challenge the law as violating their right to freedom of religion and unfairly singling them out for dietary restrictions.
Analysis
Judicial review must balance the state's interest in protecting animals and cultural heritage against individual liberty. The fundamental right to freedom of religion includes the right to practice one's faith, which for some faiths may include animal slaughter for religious purposes. The state can impose reasonable restrictions in the interest of public health, morality, and animal welfare. However, the restriction must not be so broad that it effectively prohibits the religious practice entirely or targets specific religions. If the ban is genuine protection of all cattle for secular reasons, it may survive; if it is pretextual protection of Hindu sentiment, it may fail.
Outcome
The outcome depends on whether the law is genuinely about animal welfare (likely upheld) or disguised religious preference (likely struck down). If the law permits slaughter only for certain communities or makes exceptions based on religion, it violates equality and freedom of religion. The court would scrutinize the legislative history and comparative treatment to determine the true purpose.
How CLAT tests this
- A question presents a law that violates a directive principle (e.g., inadequate implementation of the right to free education) and asks if courts will strike it down via judicial review. The trap is that directive principles are not enforceable against the legislature by judicial review; courts can only encourage compliance. Students must distinguish between fundamental rights (justiciable) and directive principles (non-justiciable).
- CLAT reverses party roles by asking whether the legislature itself can challenge a court order as unconstitutional, or whether the executive can seek judicial review of a court judgment. The principle of separation of powers and hierarchy means courts review legislative and executive action, not vice versa, creating confusion about bidirectionality of review.
- A common confusion arises between judicial review (examining constitutionality) and judicial interpretation (giving meaning to a law's language). A question may present a law with ambiguous wording and ask if courts can 'invalidate' it through interpretation. The correct answer is that courts interpret to save the law's constitutionality (reading down), not to strike it down, unless no reasonable interpretation renders it valid.
- Questions often present a law that is facially neutral but has disparate impact on a particular group, and expect students to incorrectly conclude it is per se unconstitutional. The twist is that discriminatory impact alone does not trigger review unless there is discriminatory intent or the law lacks rational basis. Facial validity may be preserved even if application is unfair.
- Examiners import doctrines from administrative law (like 'wednesbury unreasonableness' from English law) and present them as tests for judicial review under Indian constitutional law, where proportionality and basic structure tests apply instead. Students confuse procedural fairness in administrative action with substantive constitutional validity of legislation.