The Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951 is a foundational legislative Act that made the first major changes to the Constitution of India, enacted by the Provisional Parliament on June 18, 1951. It was introduced by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to overcome judicial pronouncements that were impeding the government's social and economic agenda, particularly land reforms and social justice measures. The Act was a direct response to a cluster of early court rulings, such as Romesh Thappar v. State of Madras (1950) on free speech and State of Madras v. Champakam Dorairajan (1951) on reservations.
The Act works by making three key changes to the Fundamental Rights part of the Constitution. First, it amended Article 19(2), which governs the freedom of speech and expression, by adding the grounds of "public order," "friendly relations with foreign States," and "incitement to an offence" as permissible "reasonable restrictions". Second, it inserted Clause (4) to Article 15, empowering the State to make special provisions for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes. This provision became the textual basis for reservation jurisprudence. Third, and most consequentially for land reforms, it inserted Articles 31A and 31B along with the Ninth Schedule. Article 31A protected laws providing for the acquisition of estates from challenge on the grounds of violating Articles 14 and 19. Article 31B placed laws listed in the newly added Ninth Schedule beyond the reach of judicial review on the basis of violating any Fundamental Rights.
This Act connects directly to the evolution of the Basic Structure Doctrine, as its validity was immediately challenged in Shankari Prasad v. Union of India (1951), where the Supreme Court upheld the amendment, ruling that Parliament could amend Fundamental Rights. However, the absolute immunity of the Ninth Schedule was later qualified in I.R. Coelho v. State of Tamil Nadu (2007), which held that laws inserted after April 24, 1973, are open to review under the basic structure doctrine. The original Ninth Schedule contained thirteen entries, all related to zamindari abolition, but it has since expanded to contain 284 entries.