{"id":91541,"date":"2026-03-07T18:25:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T12:55:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=91541"},"modified":"2026-03-07T18:25:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T12:55:15","slug":"25th-constitutional-amendment-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/25th-constitutional-amendment-act\/","title":{"rendered":"25th Constitutional Amendment Act, Provisions, Significance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The 25th Constitutional Amendment Act was passed to give <\/span><b>more importance to the Directive Principles of State Policy in the Constitution of India. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The amendment aimed to make it easier for the government to implement laws related to social and economic justice, even if such laws affected certain Fundamental Rights.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>25th Constitutional Amendment Act Background<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Before this amendment, <\/span><b>Article 31 of the Constitution of India<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> provided that when the government acquired private property for a public purpose, <\/span><b>it had to pay compensation to the owner.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, in the<\/span><b> R.C. Cooper v. Union of India,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the Supreme Court ruled that compensation must be adequate and fair, and the courts could examine whether the compensation given by the government was reasonable.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This created difficulties for the government in implementing certain economic reforms. Therefore, it was considered necessary to amend the Constitution so that such reforms could be carried out more easily.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>25th Constitutional Amendment Act Key Provisions<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Change in Article 31:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The amendment changed <\/span><b>Article 31<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the Constitution of India by replacing the word <\/span><b>\u201ccompensation\u201d with the word \u201camount.\u201d<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This meant that when the government acquired property, courts could not question whether the amount given was adequate.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Limitation on Fundamental Rights:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The amendment stated that laws related to property acquisition for a public purpose <\/span><b>would not be affected by <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/article-19-of-indian-constitution\/\" target=\"_blank\">Article 19<\/a><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the Constitution of India, which deals with certain Fundamental Rights.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Insertion of Article 31C:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> A new article, <\/span><b><a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/article-31c-of-indian-constitution\/\" target=\"_blank\">Article 31C<\/a> of the Constitution of India<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, was inserted. It provided that laws made to implement certain Directive Principles, especially those mentioned in <\/span><b>Article 39(b) of the Constitution of India and Article 39(c)<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the Constitution of India, <\/span><b>would not be considered invalid even if they violated Article 14<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the Constitution of India, Article 19 of the Constitution of India, or Article 31 of the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/upsc-exam\/indian-constitution\/\" target=\"_blank\">Constitution of India<\/a><\/strong>. It also said that such laws cannot be questioned in court if they contain a declaration that they implement Article 39(b) and (c). Later in Kesavananda Bharati case, the Supreme Court struck down this part that removed judicial review.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>25th Constitutional Amendment Act Case Laws<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Several important Supreme Court judgments are connected with the 25th Amendment Act. These cases clarified the limits of Parliament\u2019s power and the relationship between Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSP).<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala (1973):<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> This landmark case challenged the 24th, 25th and 29th Amendments. The <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/upsc-exam\/supreme-court-of-india\/\" target=\"_blank\">Supreme Court<\/a><\/strong> upheld the change from \u201ccompensation\u201d to \u201camount\u201d, but struck down the part of Article 31C that removed judicial review. The judgment also introduced the Basic Structure Doctrine, which states that Parliament cannot change the basic structure of the Constitution.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Minerva Mills v. Union of India (1980):<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The Court held that the Constitution is based on a balance between <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/fundamental-rights-of-indian-constitution\/\" target=\"_blank\">Fundamental Rights<\/a><\/strong> and Directive Principles. It reaffirmed the limits placed on Article 31C in the Kesavananda Bharati case.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>R.C. Cooper v. Union of India (1970) (Bank Nationalization Case):<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The Court ruled that when the government acquires private property, it must provide fair compensation equal to the property\u2019s value. The 25th Amendment was passed partly to overcome this judgment.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Waman Rao v. Union of India (1981):<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The Supreme Court upheld the first part of Article 31C and again confirmed the Basic Structure Doctrine, stating that Parliament\u2019s power to amend the Constitution is not unlimited.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>25th Constitutional Amendment Act Significance<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The 25th Constitutional Amendment Act was important because it tried to balance Fundamental Rights with Directive Principles of State Policy. It gave the government more power to carry out economic and social reforms, especially those related to the distribution of resources and reduction of economic inequality in India.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>25th Constitutional Amendment Act 1971 explained with changes in Article 31, insertion of Article 31C and its role in balancing Fundamental Rights and DPSP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":91481,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[786],"tags":[5926,5484,5485],"class_list":{"0":"post-91541","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-general-studies","8":"tag-25th-constitutional-amendment-act","9":"tag-polity","10":"tag-polity-notes","11":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91541"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91553,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91541\/revisions\/91553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}