On 13 July 2016 a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court decided the Arunachal Pradesh political crisis in Nabam Rebia v. Deputy Speaker. It held that a Speaker facing a pending notice for his own removal under Article 179(c) cannot adjudicate Tenth Schedule disqualification petitions, and that the Governor cannot use Article 174 to summon or advance an Assembly session at his own discretion against the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers. The Court quashed the Governor's actions and restored the status quo ante.
On 8 April 2025 a two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court held that a Governor has neither a pocket veto nor an absolute veto over bills passed by a State Legislature, read Article 200 through the aid-and-advice discipline of Article 163, and prescribed outer time-limits for the Governor's and the President's courses of action. Using Article 142, it deemed ten Tamil Nadu bills to have received assent. The correctness of that judgment — the timelines and the deemed-assent device especially — was then referred to a Constitution Bench under Article 143, whose advisory opinion of 20 November 2025 disapproved both. This piece reads the holding and the live doubt over its finality.
On 14 March 1960, an eight-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court delivered an advisory opinion on a Presidential Reference arising from the Indo-Pakistan boundary settlement. It held that the Preamble is not a part of the Constitution capable of overriding its express provisions, and that the cession of Indian territory to a foreign State cannot be achieved by ordinary law or by a law under Article 3 — it requires a constitutional amendment under Article 368. A digest of the reference, the questions, the holding, and where the case stands after Kesavananda.
On 5 November 2024, a three-judge bench upheld the constitutional validity of the Uttar Pradesh Board of Madarsa Education Act 2004, while striking down its higher-education-degree provisions as beyond State legislative competence under Entry 66 and the UGC Act.
On 25 July 2024, a nine-judge bench held 8:1 that mining royalty is not a tax and that States may tax mineral rights and mineral-bearing land, overruling India Cement.
On 11 May 2023 a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court unanimously delivered Subhash Desai v. Principal Secretary, Governor of Maharashtra — the apex court's most consequential Tenth Schedule ruling since Kihoto Hollohan. The Court held the Governor's 30 June 2022 floor-test call unjustified, declined to restore the Thackeray Government because of Uddhav Thackeray's voluntary resignation, struck down the Speaker's recognition of a rival whip on the principle that the whip is appointed by the political party and not the legislature party, and referred Nabam Rebia to a seven-judge bench. A close reading of the architecture, the doctrinal lines, and the unfinished business.
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 19 May 2022, a three-judge bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud, Surya Kant and Vikram Nath struck down the levy of IGST on ocean freight in CIF imports under the Reverse Charge Mechanism — holding that an Indian importer who has already paid IGST on the composite supply of CIF-imported goods cannot be separately charged IGST on the ocean-freight component of the same supply. The judgment is doctrinally significant for a connected reason: the Bench held that recommendations of the GST Council have persuasive value and are not binding on the Union or State Legislatures. A digest of the holdings, the doctrinal architecture, and the refund consequences.
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 17 February 2010, a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court — Balakrishnan CJ, Raveendran, D.K. Jain (authoring for the unanimous Bench), Sathasivam and Panchal JJ — held that the writ jurisdiction of the High Courts under Article 226 and of the Supreme Court under Article 32 is plenary and constitutional, and that a High Court may direct the Central Bureau of Investigation to investigate a cognisable offence within a State even without the State's consent under Section 6 of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act 1946. Judicial review is part of the basic structure; the constitutional power cannot be fettered by ordinary legislation. But the power is to be exercised sparingly and in exceptional cases, to preserve federal balance. A close reading of the judgment, the underlying Garbeta incident, and the federalism architecture the Bench was working through.