MEANING OF JUDICIAL REVIEW‌

Judicial review is the power of the judiciary to examine the constitutionality of legislative enactments and executive orders of both the Central and State governments. On examination, if they are found to be violative of the Constitution (ultra vires), they can be declared as illegal, unconstitutional and invalid (null and void) by the judiciary. Consequently, they cannot be enforced by the Government.

Justice Syed Shah Mohamed Quadri has classified the judicial review into the following three categories1 :

1. Judicial review of constitutional amendments.

2. Judicial review of legislation of the Parliament and State Legislatures and subordinate legislations.

3. Judicial review of administrative action of the Union and State and authorities under the state.

The Supreme Court used the power of judicial review in various cases, as for example, the Golaknath case (1967), the Bank Nationalisation case (1970), the Privy Purses Abolition case (1971), the Kesavananda Bharati case (1973), the Minerva Mills case (1980), and so on.

In 2015, the Supreme Court declared both the 99th Constitutional Amendment, 2014 and the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act, 2014 as unconstitutional and null and void.