On 18 February 1992, a five-judge Constitution Bench upheld the Tenth Schedule's constitutional validity by a 3:2 majority but struck down Paragraph 7 — the absolute finality clause — for want of ratification under the proviso to Article 368(2). The majority held that the Speaker, when adjudicating disqualification under the Tenth Schedule, acts as a Tribunal whose decisions are subject to limited judicial review under Articles 136, 226 and 227 on grounds of jurisdictional error, mala fides, perversity, violation of constitutional mandates and breach of natural justice — ordinarily only after the final order. Sharma and Verma JJ dissented in part on severability.
On 24 April 1973, a 13-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court — the largest ever assembled in Indian constitutional adjudication — held by a 7:6 majority that Parliament's amending power under Article 368 does not extend to altering the basic structure of the Constitution. The petition had begun as a religious-property challenge by the head of the Edneer Mutt; it ended as the most consequential constitutional ruling in the Republic's history. A digest of the bench, the line-up of opinions, the doctrinal contribution that has since governed every constitutional amendment, and the cases that have applied it.
On 31 July 1980, a five-judge Constitution Bench held by 4:1 that Sections 4 and 55 of the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976 — the provisions that had purported to give the Directive Principles overriding priority over the Fundamental Rights and to immunise Article 368 amendments from judicial review — were unconstitutional. The judgment is the operative authority on the harmony between Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles, on the limits of Parliament's amending power, and on judicial review as part of the basic structure. A digest of the bench, the doctrine, and the constitutional arc.