First Amendment Act, 1951

First amendment 1951 refers to the Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951, the very first change made to India's Constitution — enacted barely eighteen months after the Constitution came into force, and taking effect from 18 June 1951. It was passed by the provisional Parliament (the Constituent Assembly sitting as Parliament, since general elections had not yet been held) to remove obstacles that early court rulings had placed in the way of land reform, restrictions on speech, and provisions for backward classes. It also gave the Supreme Court its first opportunity to rule on a question that would dominate Indian constitutional law for the next two decades: can Parliament amend the Fundamental Rights at all?

Background and Context

In the year after the Constitution commenced, several state land reform and zamindari-abolition laws ran into trouble in the courts, being challenged as violations of the right to property and the equality guarantee found in Part III. At the same time, the government found that restrictions it wished to place on freedom of speech and expression, and special measures it wanted to take for socially and economically backward classes, sat uneasily with the Fundamental Rights as originally drafted. Rather than let these measures be struck down piecemeal, Parliament chose to amend the Constitution itself — the first of what would eventually become well over a hundred amendments.

Key Provisions of the First Amendment

Of these, the Ninth Schedule was the most far-reaching innovation. By simply placing an Act's name in the Schedule, Parliament could shield it from judicial review under Part III, a device that would be used repeatedly — and contested repeatedly — in later decades.

Shankari Prasad v. Union of India (1951)

The First Amendment was challenged almost as soon as it was passed. Because it curtailed the right to property, petitioners argued that a constitutional amendment could not be used to take away or abridge a Fundamental Right at all.

The Supreme Court rejected this argument. It held that the power of Parliament to amend the Constitution under Article 368 extends to the Fundamental Rights as much as to any other part of the Constitution. Central to the ruling was the Court's reading of Article 13(2), which bars the State from making any "law" that takes away or abridges Fundamental Rights, and declares such a law void to the extent of the contravention. The Court held that the word "law" in Article 13 means ordinary legislative law, not a constituent law — that is, a constitutional amendment act passed under Article 368. Because a constitutional amendment is an exercise of Parliament's constituent power rather than its ordinary legislative power, it does not count as "law" for the purposes of Article 13, and so cannot be struck down for violating Fundamental Rights. On this reasoning, the First Amendment — and the amending power itself — was upheld.

Significance and Aftermath

The Shankari Prasad position held the field for over a decade and was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in the Sajjan Singh case (1964). It also shaped how Parliament used its amending power through the 1950s and 1960s: the First Amendment (1951), followed later by the Fourth Amendment (1955) and the Seventeenth Amendment (1964), were all used to protect land reform measures and other laws intended to give effect to the Directive Principles of State Policy, at a time when courts had held that Fundamental Rights would prevail over the Directive Principles in case of a conflict.

This settled position did not last. In 1967, in the Golak Nath case, the Supreme Court reversed course and held that Fundamental Rights were "sacrosanct" and could not be abridged by Parliament through a constitutional amendment. That reversal set off its own chain of consequences — the 24th Amendment (1971) reasserting Parliament's power to amend any part of the Constitution including Fundamental Rights, and eventually the Kesavananda Bharati case (1973), which produced the basic structure doctrine as the enduring compromise between an unrestricted amending power and an unamendable set of rights. The First Amendment and the Shankari Prasad ruling are where this long argument begins.

UPSC Relevance

Prelims

• The Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951 took effect from 18 June 1951 — it was the first amendment to the Constitution.
• It inserted the Ninth Schedule, protecting listed laws from challenge on Fundamental Rights grounds.
• It added public order, friendly relations with foreign states, and incitement to an offence as grounds for restricting free speech under Article 19.
• Shankari Prasad v. Union of India (1951) upheld the First Amendment and Parliament's power to amend Fundamental Rights.

Mains

• Trace the evolution of Parliament's constituent power from Shankari Prasad (1951) through Golak Nath (1967) to Kesavananda Bharati (1973), and explain how the First Amendment triggered this trajectory.
• Discuss the tension between Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles of State Policy in the 1950s, and how early constitutional amendments including the First Amendment were used to resolve it.
• Examine the constitutional and political significance of the Ninth Schedule as a device for insulating legislation from judicial review.

FAQ

Q. What is the First Amendment Act, 1951? It is the Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951 — the first amendment made to the Indian Constitution, in effect from 18 June 1951, which altered the free speech restrictions under Article 19, enabled state action for backward classes, and inserted the Ninth Schedule.

Q. Why was the First Amendment challenged in court? Because it curtailed the right to property, and petitioners argued that Parliament could not use its amending power under Article 368 to take away or abridge a Fundamental Right.

Q. What did the Supreme Court decide in Shankari Prasad v. Union of India? The Court upheld the First Amendment, holding that Parliament's Article 368 power extends to amending Fundamental Rights, and that a constitutional amendment act is not "law" within the meaning of Article 13(2).

Q. What is the Ninth Schedule and why was it added? The Ninth Schedule is a list of laws — inserted by the First Amendment, initially covering land reform and zamindari-abolition statutes — that are protected from being challenged in court for violating Fundamental Rights.

Q. Was the Shankari Prasad ruling permanent? No. It was reaffirmed in the Sajjan Singh case (1964) but overruled in 1967 by the Golak Nath case, which held that Fundamental Rights could not be abridged by a constitutional amendment.

Quick Revision

• First Amendment Act, 1951 — in effect from 18 June 1951; first amendment to the Constitution.
• Widened Article 19(2) restrictions on free speech: public order, foreign relations, incitement to an offence.
• Empowered the State to act for socially and economically backward classes.
• Inserted the Ninth Schedule — laws in it shielded from Fundamental Rights challenges.
• Shankari Prasad (1951): Parliament can amend Fundamental Rights under Article 368; amendment acts are not "law" under Article 13.
• Position reaffirmed in Sajjan Singh (1964); overruled in Golak Nath (1967).

Sources

• Constitution of India — Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India: https://legislative.gov.in/constitution-of-india/
• The Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951 — India Code, Government of India: https://www.indiacode.nic.in/
• Supreme Court of India — Judgments: https://main.sci.gov.in/judgments

Further Reference

For deeper reading on this topic and the wider polity syllabus, these standard works are recommended:

• M. Laxmikanth, Indian Polity (McGraw Hill) — the standard UPSC handbook.
• D.D. Basu, Introduction to the Constitution of India (LexisNexis) — authoritative constitutional-law treatment.
• The Constitution of India — Bare Act — the official text.

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