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The earliest amendment to the Constitution, which added the Ninth Schedule, created Article 15(4) and expanded the grounds for restricting free speech.
The Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951 was passed barely a year after the Constitution came into force, by the Provisional Parliament, and it responded to a set of early judicial decisions that had unsettled the government's legislative programme. It did three principal things. It added the Ninth Schedule, together with Articles 31A and 31B, to shield land reform laws from challenge on the ground that they violated Fundamental Rights. It inserted Article 15(4), enabling the state to make special provisions for the advancement of socially and educationally backward classes. And it added three new grounds — public order, friendly relations with foreign States, and incitement to an offence — to the restrictions permissible on the freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(2). It is therefore both the origin of protective discrimination in Indian constitutional law and the origin of the Ninth Schedule controversy.
Type: LawNinth Schedule — created by Article 31B, placing listed laws beyond challenge on the ground of violating Fundamental Rights
Article 31A — saved laws providing for the acquisition of estates from challenge under Articles 14 and 19
Article 15(4) — empowered the state to make special provisions for the advancement of socially and educationally backward classes and for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes
Article 19(2) — added public order, friendly relations with foreign States and incitement to an offence as grounds for restricting free speech
Article 19(6) — clarified that the state may carry on a trade or business to the exclusion of citizens, enabling nationalisation
Reasonableness — made the restrictions on free speech expressly subject to the requirement of being reasonable
Frequency: Frequently asked in UPSC Prelims polity, particularly in questions on the Ninth Schedule and reservation
Article 31A
Saves laws providing for the acquisition of estates from challenge under Articles 14 and 19
Article 31B
Gives laws placed in the Ninth Schedule immunity from challenge on the ground that they violate Fundamental Rights
Article 15(4)
Enables the state to make special provisions for socially and educationally backward classes and for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes
Article 19(2)
Grounds on which the freedom of speech and expression may be reasonably restricted, expanded by this amendment
I.R. Coelho v State of Tamil Nadu (2007)
Held that laws inserted into the Ninth Schedule after 24 April 1973 may be reviewed if they damage the basic structure
The First Amendment established a pattern that has repeated throughout Indian constitutional history: a court reads a Fundamental Right expansively, the legislature amends the Constitution to restore its own room for manoeuvre, and the court then tests the limits of that amending power. Its two most consequential creations pull in opposite directions. Article 15(4) made protective discrimination constitutionally secure and is the foundation of reservation policy as it exists today. The Ninth Schedule, by contrast, began as a device to protect land reform from litigation and grew into a repository of well over two hundred laws, many with no connection to agrarian reform, all claiming immunity from Fundamental Rights review. The Supreme Court closed that route in Coelho by holding that post-1973 insertions remain testable against the basic structure. For an answer on the amending power, this amendment is the natural starting point of the story that runs through Golaknath, Kesavananda Bharati and Minerva Mills.
Enacted 1951 by the Provisional Parliament
Created the Ninth Schedule via Article 31B and added Article 31A
Inserted Article 15(4), enabling special provisions for backward classes
Added three grounds to Article 19(2): public order, friendly relations with foreign States, incitement to an offence
Responded to Champakam Dorairajan (1951) and to Romesh Thappar and Brij Bhushan (1950)
Ninth Schedule laws added after 24 April 1973 are reviewable against the basic structure, per I.R. Coelho (2007)
The First Constitutional Amendment Act, 1951, through Article 31B, principally to protect land reform laws from challenge on the ground that they violated Fundamental Rights.
It was a response to State of Madras v Champakam Dorairajan (1951), in which the Supreme Court struck down communal reservation in educational institutions. Article 15(4) gave constitutional footing to special provisions for backward classes.
Public order, friendly relations with foreign States, and incitement to an offence were added as grounds on which free speech may be reasonably restricted.
Not entirely. In I.R. Coelho (2007) the Supreme Court held that laws placed in the Ninth Schedule after 24 April 1973 can be reviewed if they damage the basic structure of the Constitution.
The Provisional Parliament, in 1951, before the first general election under the new Constitution had been held.