In the decades preceding the Kesavananda Bharati case, the amending powers of the Parliament was increased and scope for judicial review was narrowed through cases like Shankari Prasad (1951) and Sajjan Singh (1965). The Parliament had also passed the 24th Amendment to the Constitution, which sought to curtail the powers of the judiciary and limit the scope of judicial review. The 25th and 29th Amendments were later passed, which sought to limit the fundamental rights of citizens and give Parliament the power to amend any part of the Constitution.
Meanwhile, land reforms measures were being undertaken in Kerala. In 1970, the Government of Kerala imposed restrictions on the ownership of land held by religious institutions. The Edneer Mutt, headed by Sri Kesavananda Bharati, challenged the constitutionality of the Act and aforementioned constitutional amendments.
After listening to the case for 6 months, the Supreme Court on 24 April 1973, in a historic 7:6 majority decision, propounded the basic structure doctrine of the Constitution. It held that certain fundamental features of the Constitution cannot be amended by the Parliament.
Important aspect of verdict of the case and how it limits the power of the Parliament to amend the Constitution:

• Doctrine of basic structure: The verdict established the doctrine of basic structure of the Indian Constitution. It holds that certain fundamental features of the Constitution, such as the supremacy of the Constitution, the rule of law, and the independence of the judiciary, cannot be amended or abrogated by the Parliament through a constitutional amendment.
• No absolute power: The Court held that while Parliament has the power to amend the Constitution, this power is not absolute and must be exercised within the limits of the Constitution. Any amendment that seeks to alter the basic structure of the Constitution is unconstitutional.
• Judicial Review: The judgement stresses that the power of judicial review is an integral part of the basic structure of the Constitution and cannot be taken away by Parliament through constitutional amendments. With effect to this, practically no matter that Parliament can legislate on is beyond the scope of judicial review.
• Check on power of the Parliament: This doctrine has served as a check on the power of the Parliament to amend the Constitution and has ensured that the Constitution remains a living document that is responsive to changing times while preserving its fundamental values and principles.

The case thus held that the Parliament has unfettered power to amend the Constitution, but it cannot disturb the basic structure of the Constitution as it has only the power of amendment and not of rewriting the constitution. The Kesavananda Bharati case thus had far-reaching consequences for the constitutional development of India, making it one of the most significant cases in Indian constitutional law.

The concept of transformative constitutionalism means the ability of the Constitution to adapt and transform with the changing needs of the times. It aims to create a more just and equal society through the interpretation and application of constitutional provisions.
It has at its core an urge to transform the Indian society so as to embrace therein, in letter and spirit, the ideals of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity as set out in the Preamble to our Constitution. The India Constitution’s transformative character has been highlighted in several recent cases as follows:

• Rights of LGBTQ: In Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India case, the Supreme Court (SC) of India held that Section 377 is violative of Articles 14, 15, 19, and 21 of the Constitution. The Court relied on the principles of transformative constitutionalism and emphasized the need to recognize the dignity and rights of LGBTQ individuals, which was essential to building an inclusive and equal society.
• Sabarimala Temple entry case: In the Kantaru Rajeevaru v. Indian Young lawyers Association 2018, the Supreme Court of India allowed the entry of women of all ages into the Sabarimala Temple, which had previously barred women of menstruating age. The Court relied on the transformative nature of the Constitution and held that the exclusion of women violated their fundamental rights and was inconsistent with the Constitution’s guarantee of equality.
• Abortion rights to unmarried women: The SC in X v. the Principal Secretary, Health and Family Welfare Department, Government of NCT Case 2022 allowed an unmarried woman to terminate her pregnancy emphasising that irrationally discriminating between married and unmarried women in the context of access to abortions would violate the right to equality, to reproductive autonomy, privacy, and dignity of the latter.
• Coparcenary rights to women: The Supreme Court of India passed a landmark judgment in Vineeta Sharma v. Rakesh Sharma Case 2020, to amend the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005 and align with the constitutional belief of gender equality. The judgment re-affirmed equality in the treatment of sons and daughters by the law for the purposes of succession.
• Decriminalisation of Adultery: The Supreme Court struck down Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code, and decriminalised adultery in India (it remains a “civil offence”) in Joseph Shine v. Union of India Case 2018. The judgment is important as it got rid of an archaic and patriarchal law based on gender stereotypes, which was seen to be violating Articles 14 and 15 of the Indian Constitution.
• EWS Reservation Case: The Supreme Court upheld the validity of the 103rd Constitution amendment in Janhit Abhiyan v. Union of India case 2022, providing 10 per cent reservation to people belonging to the economically weaker sections in admissions and government jobs. It emphasized that as a step forward towards transformative constitutionalism, we need to revisit the system of reservation in the larger interest of the society as a whole.

The sole goal of transformative constitutionalism is to maintain and strengthen the principles of our humane constitution. By interpreting the constitution in such a way that more and more societal interests are served, the Supreme Court plays an essential role in balancing societal interests with social changes.

The self-help group (SHG) movement in India gained momentum in the early 1990s, and today, India boasts of some 12 million SHGs, of which 88 per cent are all-women-member ones. Over the years, the SHGs have played a vital role in rural development and women’s empowerment in the following ways:

• Rural development:
  • They have helped to create a culture of saving and financial discipline in rural areas, and have provided a source of credit to individuals who would otherwise have no access to it.
  • SHGs have been instrumental in promoting entrepreneurship in rural areas, with members using the loans they receive to start small businesses.
  • SHGs have helped create livelihood opportunities in rural areas, which has further attracted the involvement of many financial players in rural development.
• Women empowerment:
  • By providing women with access to credit and financial resources, SHGs have helped to break down traditional gender roles and empower women to become active participants in the economy.
  • Women who join SHGs often report an increased sense of self-esteem and confidence and are better able to assert their rights.
  • SHGs have provided self-employment opportunities to those women who earlier were largely unemployed, working for daily wages, farmers, or homemakers.
  • SHGs bring women into the mainstream of the decision-making process and contribute towards engendering equality in the democratic, social, economic, and cultural spheres of life.

However, the development of SHGs has not been uniform across the geographical regions of India and the rising proportion of non-performing assets (NPAs) of the SHGs is a matter of serious concern:

• Regional disparities: Since its inception, the SHG programme has enjoyed significant success in the Southern and Eastern regions, while other regions have lagged behind in this regard.
• Access to credit: Credit provided to SHGs in the Southern and Eastern regions together comprised about 94% of the total loans disbursed to SHGs.
• Uneven expansion: More than 40% of all operational SHGs are in Southern India alone, showing severe regional disparities in the expansion of the programme.
• Low savings and capacity creation: Savings by SHGs is the highest in the Southern region while lowest in the North-Eastern. Also, low savings reduces security for banks against credit and lowers their confidence to issue bigger loans.
• Mismatch in poverty reduction and loan growth: The primary objective of the SHG movement was to eradicate rural poverty. But, despite having almost similar poverty levels, loan disbursement increased in the Eastern region whereas it declined in the North- Eastern region.
• Rise in the NPAs of SHGs: With the swift expansion of the SHG programme, there has been a rapid increase in loan defaults, transforming several SHG loans into Non-Performing Assets (NPAs). Between 2011-12 and 2018-19, the NPAs in banks from SHG loans registered a growth of 104%. In states like Haryana, UP and Tripura, almost half of the total loan amount was converted to NPAs.
  • The rise in NPAs from SHG loans is due to poor formation of groups without adequate understanding of local conditions, loans used for consumption, frequent write-offs and interest subventions on bank loans deteriorate the financial discipline of SHG members, etc.

To make the SHGs truly effective and for them to play a role in rural transformation, there is a need to build systemic processes before pumping financial resources, such as, paying attention to internal dynamics during group formation, conducting state-level studies, developing and sharing credit information, incentivizing timely repayments, and monitoring loan defaults on a case-to-case basis while protecting the self-reliance of SHG members.

The average annual per capita water availability for the year 2021 in India has been assessed as 1486 cubic meters, well below the 1700 cubic meters, which is considered as a ‘water stressed’ condition. As per the Central Water Commission (CWC) approximately 80 percent of the total water consumed is used in agriculture, leading to inefficient use of water.
The reasons for inefficient use of water in the Indian agricultural system include:

• Improper crop and cropping system: Presently, high water intensity crops like rice, sugarcane, cotton etc. are cultivated in areas that receive normal rainfall of less than 650 mm. This is largely due to the minimum support prices mechanism favouring paddy cultivation.
• Rampant use of groundwater: Subsidized or free power has encouraged farmers to overdraw water from deep aquifers, causing substantial depletion of the water table, which has led to water quality deterioration in many cases.
• Low uptake of micro irrigation systems in India: Micro irrigation promotes precision farming, thereby achieving higher water use efficiency. However, wide inter-state variations exist in the utilization of funds under micro irrigation. Some of the Western, Southern and Central states take the lead, but the rest of the country, particularly the North and North-East seem to be complacent about the efficiency of micro-irrigation.
• Irrigation canals: There is more stress on building irrigation canals in water-stressed districts of India. Fields in Punjab and Haryana, Uttarakhand and western Uttar Pradesh where irrigation canals are in abundance see lavish use of water from the Himalayan rivers.

Measures to improve water use efficiency in agriculture are the following:

• Crop alignment and diversification with agro-climatic status: There should be a focus on crop alignment in command areas by promoting low water duty crops such as pulses and oilseeds and in sync with local agro-climatic conditions.
• Enhancing water use efficiency: This can be done by a blend of agronomic practices and deployment of technologies such as micro irrigation.
• Addressing the problems of over-exploitation of ground water: The issue can be addressed by incorporating artificial recharge of groundwater and rainwater harvesting, conjunctive water management, water conservation, regulation of groundwater development, etc.
• Adopting soil moisture conservation techniques: They can be used to reduce irrigation needs in water-scarce areas. There are a variety of methods that can be used to conserve soil moisture, which are relatively low in cost and primarily rely on the presence of required materials and local capacity, for example, mulching, conservation tillage, crop rotation, etc.
• Organic farming: Extensive promotion of organic farming will improve water retention capacity of soil by up to 80 percent.

Apart from these measures, India also needs to revamp its MSP regime. Also, there is a need to ensure that both recycling and farm water supply policies incorporate provisions for supplying treated wastewater to farmlands. In this regard, the Indian government has taken several measures to promote sustainable agricultural practices, such as Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana, Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, ‘Sahi Fasal’ campaign, etc.