Ninth Schedule

Ninth Schedule to the Constitution of India (Validation of Certain Acts and Regulations)

Article 31B (and related to Article 31A)

The Ninth Schedule contains a list of central and state laws that are shielded from judicial review on the ground that they violate fundamental rights, primarily those under Articles 14, 19, and 31. It was added by the Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951, mainly to protect land reform and zamindari abolition laws from being struck down by courts. Over time, many unrelated laws were added to the list by successive amendments, expanding its scope well beyond agrarian reform. In the landmark I.R. Coelho v. State of Tamil Nadu (2007) case, the Supreme Court held that laws placed in the Ninth Schedule after the Kesavananda Bharati judgment (24 April 1973) are not automatically immune from judicial review and can be tested against the basic structure doctrine. Notable entries include various state land reform acts, the Tamil Nadu reservation law providing 69% reservation, and other legislation on monopoly and property rights. The Schedule remains significant as a site of tension between legislative supremacy and judicial review in Indian constitutional law.

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