Solution:

The Kesavananda Bharati judgement or His Holiness Kesavananda Bharati Sripadagalvaru and Ors. v. State of Kerala and Anr. is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of India that outlined the basic structure doctrine of the Constitution. Justice Hans Raj Khanna asserted through this doctrine that the constitution possesses a basic structure of constitutional principles and values. The Court partially cemented the prior precedent Golaknath v. State of Punjab, which held that constitutional amendments pursuant to Article 368 were subject to fundamental rights review, by asserting that only those amendments which tend to affect the ‘basic structure of the Constitution’ are subject to judicial review. At the same time, the Court also upheld the constitutionality of the first provision of Article 31(c), which implied that any constitutional amendment seeking to implement the Directive Principles, which does not affect the ‘Basic Structure’, shall not be subjected to judicial review.

The basic structure doctrine forms the basis of the power of the Indian judiciary to review and strike down, amendments to the Constitution of India enacted by the Indian parliament which conflict with or seek to alter this basic structure of the Constitution.

The 13-judge Constitutional bench of the Supreme Court deliberated on the limitations, if any, of the powers of the elected representatives of the people and the nature of fundamental rights of an individual. In a sharply divided verdict, by a margin of 7-6, the court held that while the Parliament has “wide” powers, it did not have the power to destroy or emasculate the basic elements or fundamental features of the constitution.