PYQ Vault · Paper 1 · Planning & Economic Development
Land reforms programmes led to some constitutional amendments. Comment.
How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Flow snapshot — how the answer moves
Intro routes
G3 land reforms to fix unequal agrarian structure at Independence → grounded in Art 39(b)/39(c) → challenged under fundamental right to property → drove amendments €33 agrarian justice needed legal protection → reform laws challenged in court under property right → Constitution amended to shield them
Body flow
First Amendment 1951: Art 31 amended, Art 31A + 31B inserted, Ninth Schedule created, 13 state laws protected → Shankari Prasad upheld it → Kameshwar Singh linked reform to Directive Principles + social justice → Fourth Amendment 1955 elaborated Art 31A → Seventeenth Amendment 1964: acquisition, ceiling, compensation → Seventy-Eighth Amendment 1995: +27 laws to Ninth Schedule → Forty-Fourth Amendment removed property as a
Counter-view
fundamental right
Conclusion routes
landholders’ fundamental right to property vs state’s Directive Principles and social justice → amendments settled the tension in favour of reform G3 claim holds → agrarian reform steadily reshaped the Constitution property progressively subordinated to social justice → land reform a chief driver of early constitutional change
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
