Justice Hans Raj Khanna, popularly known as Justice H.R Khanna, has a big role to play, if not single handedly responsible, for the constitution as we know it today.
This name reminds us of two landmark cases that changed the face of the constitution for ever. The first one being Keshavananda Bharati vs. State of Kerala. This judgment came after it was clear the Indian judiciary was confused regarding the constitutionality of the amendments to the fundamental rights in the Part 3 of the constitution being made by the legislature.
Justice H.R Khanna in this case authored the famous “basic structure doctrine” which has been followed by every court in the country ever since in determining whether a particular amendment is constitutional or not. Basically what Justice Khanna suggested was that the framers of the constitution had a particular structure in mind, which could not be amended at any cost. All other parts of the constitution are amendable. Hence, he chose the middle path between completely allowing the legislature to amend any provision of Part 3 of the constitution and completely disallowing the same. He defined the preamble and the Articles 20,21 as the aforementioned basic structure which couldn’t be amended by the legislature.
The second landmark case that Justice Khanna is known for is A.D.M Jabalpur v. Shiv Kant Shukla or, as it is more popularly known, the Habeas Corpus case. This was just after the emergency invoked at the direction of the then Prime Minister of the country, and undoubtedly one of the most powerful PM India has ever seen, Mrs. Indira Gandhi. Justice Khanna in this case went against the majority opinion, along with that of a very powerful government’s opinion, and wrote that the emergency does not suspend Right to Life and Liberty of a citizen.
This observation resulted in him being superseded by a junior judge for the position of Chief Justice of India. He resigned from the position of Supreme Court Justice in protest. Later he also stood for the Presidential election but was defeated by Zail Singh.
Justice H.R Khanna is most known for his courage to stand up to what is right and just even when he was against the most powerful person in the country of his time, even if it meant him never being able to make it as the Chief Justice of India despite being the senior most judge of the Supreme Court.
Author: Akshay Goel, Hidayatullah National Law University
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