Fundamental Duties: Article 51A, their nature, enforceability and judicial use

LUG-104 Constitutional Law-I, Unit IV: Fundamental duties (Article 51A). · LLB · 50 min

Part IVA contains a single Article, 51A, listing eleven duties of every citizen. This lecture covers their origin in the Swaran Singh Committee and the 42nd Amendment, the text of each duty, their non-justiciable character, the laws that give them teeth, and the cases in which the Supreme Court has used them: Bijoe Emmanuel on the National Anthem, M.C. Mehta on the environment, AIIMS Students Union on excellence, Ranganath Mishra on the Verma Committee and Shyam Narayan Chouksey on cinema halls. Fundamental Duties are usually a short note in the LUG-104 paper, but a well-prepared student can also use them in answers on Article 19, Article 21 and the Directive Principles.

Objectives

Explain how and why Part IVA was added by the 42nd Amendment on the recommendation of the Swaran Singh Committee
List the eleven duties in Article 51A, including clause (k) added by the 86th Amendment
Explain the nature of the duties: citizens only, non-justiciable, enforceable only through laws made for the purpose
Apply the leading cases in which the Supreme Court has used Article 51A to interpret rights and to test State action
Distinguish Fundamental Duties from Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles and evaluate the criticism of Part IVA

Slides

Origin: the Swaran Singh Committee and the 42nd Amendment
The eleven duties: the text of Article 51A
Nature of the duties: who is bound, and can they be enforced?
Duties and rights: the correlation and its use in testing restrictions
Bijoe Emmanuel v. State of Kerala (1986): respect without singing
Article 51A(g) and the environment: the M.C. Mehta cases
AIIMS Students Union v. AIIMS (2001): duties as a tool of interpretation
Ranganath Mishra v. Union of India (2003): operationalising the duties
Shyam Narayan Chouksey (2016-2018): the National Anthem in cinema halls
Duties, Rights and Directives compared; criticism of Part IVA
How the examiner asks it

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