The petitioners in Waman Rao challenged the Maharashtra Lands (Ceiling on Holdings) Act, 1961 which had been placed in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution. The respondents relied on Articles 31A, 31B, and 31C to contend that the impugned legislation was immunised from constitutional challenges grounded in Articles 14 and 19. In response to this defence, the petitioners contended that the aforementioned constitutional provisions were themselves unconstitutional and assailed the constitutional amendments which inserted them into the Constitution. In doing so, the petitioners challenged Article 31-C (as it stood prior to the Forty-Second Amendment).
To obviate the precedent in Kesavananda Bharati, where the vires of Article 31-C had already been disputed and arguably settled, the petitioners in Waman Rao contended that no clear holding concerning Article 31-C was discernible from the numerous opinions in Kesavananda Bharati. The Constitution Bench in Waman Rao rejected this contention. Chief Justice YV Chandrachud, speaking for the majority, held:
“53. Shri M.N. Phadke, who led the argument on behalf of the petitioners, built a formidable attack against the vires of Article 31-C. But, with respect to the learned counsel, the effort is fruitless because the question as regards the validity of Article 31-C is no longer res integra. The opening clause of Article 31-C was upheld by the majority in Kesavananda Bharati and we do not quite see how the petitioners can be permitted to go behind this decision. […] It is well known that six learned Judges who were in minority in Kesavananda Bharati upheld the first part of Article 31-C, which was a logical and inevitable consequence of Parliament’s power to amend the Constitution. Khanna, J. did not subscribe to that view but, all the same, he upheld the first part of Article 31-C for different reasons.
The question of the validity of the Twenty-fifth Amendment by which the unamended Article 31-C was introduced into the Constitution was specifically raised before the court and the arguments in that behalf were specifically considered by all the six minority Judges and by Khanna, J. It seems to us difficult, in these circumstances, to hold that no common ratio can be culled from the decision of the majority of the seven judges who upheld the validity of Article 31-C. Putting it simply, there is no reason why simple matters should be made complicated, the ratio of the majority judgements in Kesavananda Bharati is that the first part of Article 31-C is valid.”
The majority of the Constitution Bench in Waman Rao ultimately held that:
“68. … (3) Article 31-C of the Constitution, as it stood prior to its amendment by Section 4 of the Constitution (42nd Amendment) Act, 1976, is valid to the extent to which its constitutionality was upheld in Kesavananda Bharati. Article 31-C, as it stood prior to the Constitution (42nd Amendment) Act does not damage any of the basic or essential features of the Constitution or its basic structure….”
The decision in Waman Rao upheld the validity of Article 31-C (as it stood prior to the Forty-Second Amendment) insofar as it had already been upheld in Kesavananda Bharati.
To sum up, the decision in Kesavananda Bharati upheld the first half of Article 31-C to the extent that it provided immunity to statutes from Article 14 and Article 19 challenges if they gave effect to the principles in clause (b) or clause (c) of Article 39. The decision in Kesavananda Bharati also struck down the second half of Article 31-C which prevented judicial review of whether a law in fact gave effect to these principles.
The decision in Minerva Mills invalidated Section 4 of the Forty-Second Amendment which expanded the scope of the immunity provided by Article 31-C from laws giving effect to the principles in clause (b) or clause (c) of Article 39 to laws giving effect to any Directive Principle. The decision in Waman Rao, which concerned Article 31-C prior to the Forty- Second Amendment, reiterated the position set out in Kesavananda Bharati, that the first half of the unamended Article 31-C was constitutionally valid and the second half was not.