Basic Structure Doctrine

The basic structure doctrine is an Indian constitutional principle holding that Parliament's power to amend the Constitution of India, granted by Article 368, does not extend to altering or destroying the Constitution's basic structure, a set of core features the judiciary has identified case by case rather than one fixed list, generally understood to include judicial review, federalism, secularism, democracy, the rule of law and the separation of powers. The doctrine has no textual basis in the constitutional text; the Supreme Court of India read it into the nature of a written constitution granting an amending power rather than a constituent power to remake the document entirely. It has since been applied repeatedly to strike down constitutional amendments that the Court found crossed this line, and it has influenced constitutional courts elsewhere in South Asia, including Bangladesh and, more contested, Pakistan, making it one of the most closely studied examples of judicially created limits on formally unlimited amending power anywhere in comparative constitutional law.