From a Directive Principle to a Fundamental Right

Chapter 2 recounts the developments around adjudication of fundamental rights and directive principles that climaxed with the inclusion of Article 21A in the constitutional text. By examining the historical background of the Eighty-Ninth Constitutional Amendment, the chapter then tries to find some answers concerning its doctrinal and practical significance.Surprisingly, the chapter concludes, there was very little of a ‘vision’ of what the purpose of Article 21A would be. Still, the fundamental right to elementary education is now part of the constitutional text, and the fact that there is one explicitly justiciable socio-economic right might have a significance that goes beyond mere symbolism. Whatever the motivation for including Article 21A in the constitutional text may have been (even if the intention was only to symbolically declare that the State takes the matter of elementary education seriously, or to appease groups calling for State action), the provision is now part of the constitutional text, and the judiciary is called upon to adjudicate on it when it is approached.