It was because of jurist Nani Palkhivala that “the basic structure” of Indian Constitution was laid down which cannot be destroyed or tampered with by any government, Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman said here on Saturday.
The Supreme Court judge was delivering the 16th Nani Palkhivala Memorial Lecture titled, ‘Guardian angel of fundamental rights’ at the National Centre for Performing Arts in the presence of sitting and retired Bombay High Court judges, lawyers and students.
He dedicated the lecture to Mr. Palkhivala’s younger brother Behram ( who died in July 2018) and said, “he would have loved this lecture for his great brother is the subject matter of today’s discussion” and added, “His brother is the ‘centre piece of the rights of the citizens and those taken for granted and enjoyed today’.”
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Justice Nariman, who has practised law for 35 years and been SC judge since July 2014 said Mr. Palkhivala always chose the simplest and clean examples to make his argument and took the Preamble and Article 368 (Power of Parliament to amend the Constitution and procedure) of the Indian Constitution to make its basic structure.
He discussed, part III — fundamental rights and part IV — Directive Principles of State Policy and said, “Fundamental rights are basic rights which the citizen deserves to himself and enforces through the medium of superior courts under Article 32 (Right to move the Supreme Court).
The former Solicitor General of India said, none of these rights granted in the Indian Constitution are absolute, most of them are subject to reasonable restriction made by the government of the day through legislation in public interest.
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He said, Mr Palkhivala, a defender of constitutional liberties, and champion of human rights had said, “eternal vigilance is the only thing that will keep a majoritarian government at bay.” The 62 year-old ended his talk by saying, “Unless the lamp of liberty burns bright and hard in every citizen’s mind and heart, no basic structure will ever be tampered.”