On 10 April 2008, a five-judge Constitution Bench upheld the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act 2006 — providing 27% OBC reservation in centrally-funded higher education institutions including the IITs, IIMs, AIIMS and central universities — together with the 93rd Constitutional Amendment that inserted Article 15(5). The Bench extended the Indra Sawhney creamy-layer doctrine to OBC reservation in higher education, preserved the 50% reservation ceiling and required periodic review and quantifiable data. The validity of Article 15(5) for private unaided institutions was left for Pramati (2014) to settle.
On 21 February 1978, a seven-judge Constitution Bench laid down the triple test for 'industry' under s.2(j) of the Industrial Disputes Act, sweeping hospitals, clubs, and charities into its coverage.
On 27 February 2009 a three-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court held that neither the RDDBFI Act 1993 nor the SARFAESI Act 2002 contained any express provision giving the secured creditor priority over the State's statutory first charge for sales-tax or excise dues. The non-obstante clauses in Section 34(1) RDDBFI and Section 35 SARFAESI did not, by implication, displace specific statutory first charges in State revenue legislation. The State's first charge prevailed. The decision drove the 2016 Amendment Act, which inserted Section 31B RDDBFI and Section 26E SARFAESI and reversed the priority position for registered secured creditors prospectively.
On 17 November 1992, a five-judge Constitution Bench fixed the post-46th-Amendment ceiling on State works-contract VAT — value at the time of incorporation, with eight permissible deductions.
On 7 February 1966, a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court (Hidayatullah J. authoring, with Gajendragadkar CJ, Wanchoo, V. Ramaswami and Satyanarayanaraju JJ.) settled the foundational canon of Indian insurance-contract interpretation: the court's task is to interpret the words in which the parties have expressed their contract — not to make a new contract, however reasonable, that the parties have not made themselves. A cover note issued 'subject to the usual conditions of the Society's policies' incorporates the full policy framework, including a termination clause, even before the formal policy issues. The judgment is the strict-construction landmark; supporting principles of uberrimae fidei and contra proferentem read alongside but trace their foundational SC authority to Mithoolal Nayak v. LIC (1962) for the disclosure duty. Sixty years on, every Indian insurance-contract dispute begins from the Chandumull Jain canon.
On 7 November 1975, a five-judge Constitution Bench unanimously struck down Clause (4) of Article 329A — the Thirty-ninth Amendment's attempt to retroactively withdraw the Prime Minister's election from judicial scrutiny — as a violation of the basic structure. On the merits, the Court reversed the Allahabad High Court and upheld Mrs Gandhi's Rae Bareli election, but on statutory grounds: the retroactive amendments to the Representation of the People Act had taken the very corrupt-practice findings out from under Sinha J's judgment. The judgment installed free and fair elections, judicial review of election disputes and the rule of law as basic-structure components.
On 12 October 1999, a five-judge Constitution Bench upheld State sales tax on the full price of food and drink served at restaurants and bars under Article 366(29A)(f), with no service-element split.
On 1 May 2001, a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court affirmed the Shambhu Nath Goyal threshold-pleading rule — management must, at the first opportunity in its written statement before the Tribunal, reserve the right to lead fresh evidence in the event the domestic enquiry is found invalid.
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 8 April 2004 a three-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court upheld the constitutional validity of the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002 while striking down its Section 17(2) requirement that a borrower deposit 75% of the demand before access to the Debts Recovery Tribunal. The Bench also read into Section 13(3) a duty on the secured creditor to communicate, in writing, the reasons for non-acceptance of the borrower's representation — a safeguard that Parliament codified within months as Section 13(3A) by the 2004 Amendment Act.
On 2 December 1977, a five-judge Constitution Bench held that Article 324 vests the Election Commission of India with plenary and residuary powers wherever statute or rules are silent, but that those powers must be exercised consistently with natural justice and on reasons stated when the order is made — not on reasons supplied later by affidavit. The judgment also reaffirmed that Article 329(b) bars judicial interference with the election process between notification and declaration, leaving the election petition as the sole post-result remedy.
On 30 August 2001, a five-judge Constitution Bench unanimously held that no automatic absorption flows from a Section 10 notification under the Contract Labour Act. Air India Statutory Corporation was prospectively overruled. The remedy for displaced contract workers is industrial adjudication — not direct constitutional absorption.
On 6 December 1991, a 4:1 Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court held that minority educational institutions — aided or unaided — retain the right under Article 30(1) to admit students of their own community on a preferential basis up to approximately 50% of seats, with the remainder filled by merit from the general pool. Justice Jagannatha Shetty's majority harmonised Article 29(2) with Article 30(1); Justice Kasliwal dissented. T.M.A. Pai (2002) later calibrated the rigid 50% cap institution-by-institution but left the autonomy floor intact.
On 1 April 1958, a five-judge Constitution Bench struck down the Madras works-contract sales tax as ultra vires Entry 48 List II — the wall that eventually forced the 46th Constitutional Amendment.
On 15 February 2024, a five-judge Constitution Bench unanimously struck down the Electoral Bonds Scheme and the Finance Act, 2017 amendments to the RBI Act, Companies Act, Income Tax Act, and Representation of the People Act that had enabled it. The judgment held the architecture violated the voter's right to information under Article 19(1)(a), failed the proportionality test, and could not be sustained on the asserted ground of donor confidentiality. A digest of the bench, the doctrinal logic, the consequential directions to SBI to disclose bond purchase and redemption data, and what the judgment now requires.
On 2 March 2023, a five-judge Constitution Bench unanimously held that the Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioners must, until Parliament legislates, be appointed by the President on the recommendation of a committee comprising the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, and the Chief Justice of India. Parliament's response — the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023 — replaced the CJI with a Union Cabinet Minister, and the constitutional challenges to the Act are now pending. A digest of the judgment, the committee architecture, and the contested response.
On 28 March 2018, a three-judge Bench held in Asian Resurfacing of Road Agency v. CBI that interim stays of trial granted by a High Court in civil and criminal proceedings would automatically vacate after six months, unless extended by a speaking order. The rule operated for almost six years before, on 29 February 2024, a five-judge Constitution Bench in High Court Bar Association, Allahabad v. State of UP held it constitutionally unsustainable and overruled it. A digest of both judgments, the practitioner architecture they produced, and the constitutional position that now obtains.
On 6 September 2012, a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court overruled Bhatia International and Venture Global and held that Part I of the Arbitration & Conciliation Act, 1996 applies only to arbitrations seated in India. The judgment prospectively rewrote the boundary between domestic-court supervision and party-chosen foreign seats, aligned Indian law with the UNCITRAL Model Law and the New York Convention, and laid the analytical scaffolding on which Indus Mobile, BGS SGS Soma JV and PASL Wind Solutions were later built.
On 15 September 2014, a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court — R.M. Lodha C.J., J.S. Khehar J., J. Chelameswar J., A.K. Sikri J. and R.F. Nariman J. — unanimously held that the proviso to Section 113 of the Income-tax Act, 1961, imposing a surcharge on tax computed in block assessments and inserted by the Finance Act 2002 with effect from 1 June 2002, operates prospectively only and does not apply to block periods ending before that date; the bench overruled the contrary view in CIT v. Suresh N. Gupta (2008) that had treated the proviso as clarificatory. The judgment is the modern leading authority on the presumption against retrospective operation of tax statutes — particularly statutes that levy a new tax, increase a rate, or impose a surcharge. A digest of the bench, the statutory architecture, the doctrinal contribution on the substantive–clarificatory distinction, and the post-judgment arc through Sankaracharya University (2023) and the GST retrospective-amendment challenges now mounting in High Courts.
On 6 December 2023 a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, in Cox & Kings Ltd v. SAP India Pvt Ltd, affirmed the group-of-companies doctrine as a valid and continuing part of Indian arbitration jurisprudence but re-anchored its legal foundation — moving it away from the textual hook of 'claiming through or under' in Sections 8 and 45, on which Chloro Controls had rested it, and into the consent-based definition of 'party' in Section 2(1)(h) read with Section 7. A close reading of CJI Chandrachud's judgment, the five-factor consent inquiry, the prima facie / final-call division of labour between referral court and tribunal, and what the doctrine looks like in post-Cox & Kings practice.
On 28 September 2001, a five-judge Constitution Bench upheld the constitutional validity of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 — but read its principal provision as requiring the husband to make reasonable and fair provision for the maintenance of the divorced wife beyond the iddat period, including for her future. The judgment is the foundational doctrinal contribution that preserved the maintenance architecture of Shah Bano through interpretation of the 1986 Act, and supplies the doctrinal frame within which the more recent Mohd Abdul Samad v. State of Telangana operates.
On 11 May 2023, a five-judge Constitution Bench held that the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi has legislative and executive power over 'services' — the administrative architecture of public servants serving the Delhi Government — with the exception of public order, police, and land, which remain reserved to the Union under Article 239AA. The judgment supplied a federalism architecture for the Union Territory of Delhi. A week later, Parliament responded with the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Ordinance, 2023, replaced by the Amendment Act, 2023, substantially reversing the judgment's operational effect. A digest of the judgment, the constitutional framework, and the legislative response.
On 11 December 2023, a five-judge Constitution Bench unanimously upheld the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution and the constitutional re-ordering of Jammu and Kashmir effected by the Presidential Orders of August 2019 and the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019. Three judgments were delivered — by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud (for himself, Justice Gavai and Justice Surya Kant), Justice Kaul, and Justice Khanna — converging on the result and disagreeing only on the route. A digest of the judgments, the constitutional questions they answered, and the doctrinal architecture they leave.
On 11 January 2007, a nine-judge Constitution Bench unanimously held that any law inserted into the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution after 24 April 1973 — the date of the Kesavananda Bharati judgment — is open to judicial scrutiny on the ground that it violates the basic structure or the Fundamental Rights forming part of the basic structure. The judgment closes the doctrinal loop that Kesavananda had opened: the Ninth Schedule cannot operate as a constitutional refuge from the basic structure doctrine.
On 7 November 2022, a five-judge Constitution Bench held by 3:2 that the Constitution (One Hundred and Third Amendment) Act, 2019 — which had inserted clauses authorising the State to provide reservation of up to 10 per cent for economically weaker sections, additional to the existing reservation under Articles 15(4), 15(5) and 16(4) — did not breach the basic structure of the Constitution. Justices Maheshwari, Trivedi and Pardiwala wrote separate concurring opinions for the majority; Justice Ravindra Bhat wrote a dissent on behalf of himself and Chief Justice U.U. Lalit. A digest of the bench, the holdings, the dissent, and the doctrinal arc of reservation jurisprudence after the EWS judgment.
On 26 September 2018, a five-judge Constitution Bench held that the creamy-layer principle applies to reservation in promotion for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes — and read down the requirement, articulated in M. Nagaraj (2006), that States collect quantifiable data to demonstrate backwardness of SC/STs as a condition for providing such reservation. The unanimous judgment of Justice Nariman recalibrates the doctrinal architecture between Indra Sawhney, M. Nagaraj, and the SC/ST promotion reservation regime. A digest of the question, the holding, the doctrinal logic, and the lineage.
On 26 September 2018, a five-judge Constitution Bench held by 4:1 that the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 was constitutionally valid in substantial part, that its passage as a Money Bill was within Parliament's competence, and that Section 7 — the mandatory linking of Aadhaar with benefits — was sustainable. Section 57 — permitting private entities to seek Aadhaar authentication — and parts of Section 33(2) were struck down. Justice D.Y. Chandrachud dissented entirely. A digest of the judgment, the Money Bill question, and the doctrinal arc from the 9-judge privacy ruling through this 5-judge substantive engagement.
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 18 March 1997 a seven-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, in a unanimous judgment authored by Chief Justice A.M. Ahmadi, struck down clause 2(d) of Article 323A and clause 3(d) of Article 323B to the extent they excluded the writ jurisdiction of the High Courts and of the Supreme Court over decisions of administrative tribunals. Judicial review under Articles 32, 226 and 227 was held to be part of the basic structure of the Constitution, tribunals were repositioned as courts of first instance rather than substitutes for High Courts, and the 'alternative institutional mechanism' theory of S.P. Sampath Kumar (1987) was partly overruled.
On 17 April 1985, a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court — majority opinion authored by Rangnath Misra J. on behalf of himself and three other judges, with a separate concurring opinion by O. Chinnappa Reddy J. — unanimously held that excise duty paid directly by McDowell's buyers to the State to obtain distillery passes formed part of McDowell's turnover under the Andhra Pradesh General Sales Tax Act, 1957; the structural arrangement was a colourable device. The majority articulated that tax planning within the law is legitimate but colourable devices cannot be part of tax planning; Chinnappa Reddy J.'s concurrence went further, drawing on the UK Ramsay–Burmah Oil–Dawson line to urge a substance-over-form approach. A digest of the bench composition (as independently verifiable), the architecture of the Andhra excise scheme, the doctrinal contribution, and the post-McDowell arc through Azadi Bachao, Vodafone, and the statutory GAAR.
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.
On 25 April 2023, a five-judge Constitution Bench in N.N. Global Mercantile v. Indo Unique Flame held by 3:2 that an unstamped arbitration agreement could not be acted upon under Section 11 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1996. Eight months later, on 13 December 2023, a seven-judge Constitution Bench in In Re Interplay overruled it unanimously — restoring separability, kompetenz-kompetenz and the prima facie referral standard, and confining stamping to a curable Section 35 admissibility question for the tribunal. A close reading of the architecture, the 3:2 split, the seven-judge overruling, what was decided, what was left for the tribunal, and how the arc from SMS Tea Estates (2011) to Tarini Mohanty (2026) now reads end-to-end.
On 10 July 1985, a five-judge Constitution Bench held in Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation that the right to life under Article 21 includes the right to livelihood — because no person can live without the means of living. The Bench was hearing a petition by pavement dwellers in Bombay challenging their eviction under the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act, 1888. The petitioners ultimately did not succeed in vacating the eviction architecture, but the doctrinal contribution — that livelihood is part of Article 21 — has shaped four decades of socio-economic-rights jurisprudence.
On 12 August 2005 a seven-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, in P.A. Inamdar v. State of Maharashtra, refined T.M.A. Pai (2002) on the four-fold typology of educational institutions and held that the State cannot impose reservation or admission quotas on private unaided professional institutions — minority or non-minority. Chief Justice Lahoti's unanimous judgment endorsed common entrance testing, retained the Islamic Academy regulatory-committee model for fees in an interim role, disapproved Islamic Academy's directions on State-percentage quotas in unaided institutions, and held that Article 29(2) does not override Article 30(1) in minority unaided institutions — vindicating the partial dissent of Quadri J and Ruma Pal J in T.M.A. Pai. The 93rd Constitutional Amendment Act 2005, inserting Article 15(5), was Parliament's direct legislative response.
On 30 July 1992 a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court in Mohini Jain v. State of Karnataka read the right to education out of Article 21 read with the Directive Principles in Articles 38, 39, 41 and 45 and struck down capitation fees in professional colleges. Seven months later, on 4 February 1993, a five-judge Constitution Bench in Unni Krishnan v. State of A.P. refined and re-stated the right — bifurcating its content so that free and compulsory education up to the age of fourteen became enforceable as a fundamental right (later codified as Article 21A by the 86th Amendment) while education beyond that age remained subject to the State's economic capacity. The Bench also imposed the free-seats / payment-seats scheme on private unaided professional institutions and capped capitation fees as unconstitutional. The combined two-step articulation set the doctrinal frame from which the 86th Amendment (2002), the RTE Act 2009, Society for Unaided Private Schools (2012) and Pramati (2014) all proceeded.
On 10 February 1970, an eleven-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court struck down the Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1969 by a ten-to-one majority. Justice J.C. Shah's majority judgment did three doctrinally distinct things: it read Article 31(2) compensation as a 'just equivalent', it replaced the object/subject test with an effect test, and it overruled A.K. Gopalan's silo theory of fundamental rights — the analytical move that, eight years later, made the golden triangle of Maneka Gandhi possible.
On 16 October 2015, a five-judge Constitution Bench held by 4:1 that the Constitution (Ninety-ninth Amendment) Act, 2014 and the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act, 2014 were unconstitutional — and restored the collegium system for the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court and the High Courts. The majority held that judicial primacy in the appointment process is part of the independence of the judiciary, which is part of the basic structure of the Constitution. Justice Chelameswar dissented entirely. A digest of the bench, the doctrinal architecture, and the Memorandum of Procedure question that remains.
On 11 March 1994, a nine-judge Constitution Bench delivered the most consequential federalism ruling of the post-Kesavananda generation. The judgment held that the President's proclamation under Article 356 imposing President's Rule in a State is subject to judicial review; that secularism is part of the basic structure of the Constitution; that the dissolution of a State Legislative Assembly cannot precede Parliament's approval of the proclamation; and that a State Government that fails to act in accordance with the secular character of the Constitution can, on appropriate facts, be dismissed. A digest of the bench, the doctrinal holdings, and the architecture they leave.
On 1 August 2024, a seven-judge Constitution Bench held by 6:1 that sub-classification within Scheduled Castes for reservation purposes is constitutionally permissible — and overruled E.V. Chinnaiah v. State of Andhra Pradesh (2004), which had held that the Scheduled Castes constituted a homogeneous class. The judgment recalibrates the Indra Sawhney – M. Nagaraj – Jarnail Singh line on reservation and opens the door to sub-quotas within SC reservation for the most disadvantaged sub-groups, subject to empirical data and constitutional safeguards. A digest of the bench, the opinions, the overruling of E.V. Chinnaiah, and what States can now do.
On 31 October 2002 an eleven-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, in T.M.A. Pai Foundation v. State of Karnataka, comprehensively re-stated the law on educational institutions in India — recognising the right to establish and administer an institution as an occupation under Article 19(1)(g), settling the State-wise determination of minority status, drawing the four-fold aided/unaided × minority/non-minority typology that still governs the field, overruling the free-seats/payment-seats scheme of Unni Krishnan as applied to private unaided institutions, and reading down the rigid 50% cap of St. Stephen's College on minority preference. A close reading of Chief Justice Kirpal's majority, the five separate opinions, the partial dissents of Quadri J and Ruma Pal J on the Article 29(2)/30(1) interaction, and the doctrinal arc through Islamic Academy, Inamdar, the 93rd Amendment and the RTE Act.
Forty-eight years after Justice Krishna Iyer's expansive reading of 'industry' under Section 2(j) of the Industrial Disputes Act, a nine-judge Constitution Bench led by the Chief Justice has reserved judgment on whether the test in *Bangalore Water Supply* lays down correct law. A practitioner's preview of the reference, the bench, the questions, and what an answer either way would mean for labour and HR practice.