Legal luminary who propounded idea of Constitution’s basic structure

Barrister M.K. Nambyar’s sons, including Attorney General K.K. Venugopal, compile a short biography

Barrister M.K. Nambyar, an illustrious lawyer of the Supreme Court and the Madras High Court, who died in 1975, pulled no punches when it came to defending the fundamental rights and basic structure of the Constitution. It was he who laid the very foundation for the idea of the basic structure of the Constitution when he argued in the I.C. Golaknath v. State of Punjab case in the Supreme Court in 1967. He had contended that Parliament had no power to amend the fundamental rights under Part III of the Constitution. He took the cue from the principle expounded by the German thinker, Dieter Conrad, in this regard. Since then, various facets of the basic structure doctrine have evolved through a slew of Supreme Court judgments. Nambyar believed that the struggle for Independence and the enactment of the Constitution had secured for the citizens the fundamental rights.