SRUGK

DIRECTIVE PRINCIPLES OF STATE POLICY

The Indian Constitution is first and foremost a social document. It is the Directive Principles which nourish the roots of a democracy, provide strength and viguor to it and attempt to make it a real participatory democracy which does not remain merely a political democracy but also becomes a social and economic democracy with Fundamental Rights available to all irrespective of their power, position or wealth. The dynamic provisions of the Directive Principles fertilize the static provisions of the Fundamental Rights, the object of the Fundamental Right is to protect individual liberty, but individual liberty cannot be considered in isolation from the socio-economic structure in which it is to operate.


There is a real connection between individual liberty and the shape and form of the social and economic structure of the society. There cannot be any individual liberty at all for the large mass of the people who are suffering from want and privation of their individual rights by the exploitative economic system. Their individual liberty would come in conflict with the liberty of the socially and economically more powerful class and in the process gets mutilated or destroyed. The real controversy in the present-day society is not between power and freedom but between one form of liberty and another. Under the present socio-economic system, it is the liberty of the few which is in conflict with the liberty of the many.


The Directive Principles, therefore, impose an obligation on the State to take positive action for creating socio-economic condition in which there will be an egalitarian social order with social and economic justice to all so that individual liberty will become a cherished value and the dignity of the individual a living reality, not only for a few privileged persons but for the entire people of the country. Thus Directive Principles enjoy a very high place in the constitutional scheme and it is only in the framework of the socio-economic structure envisaged in the Directive Principles that the fundamental Rights are intended to operate, for it is only then they can become meaningful and significant for the millions of our poor and deprived people, who do not have even the bare necessities of life and who are living below the poverty level.


36. Definition:

In the Part, unless the context otherwise requires, “the State” has the same meaning as in Part III.


COMMENTS

The definition of the term “State” is given under Article 12 of the constitution. The term “the State” includes the Government and Parliament of India and the Government and the legislature of each of the States and all local or other authorities within the territory of India or under the control of the Government of India. It is wide definition and besides legislature and executive, all Government-owned entities, Whether a company, a society registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 are include within the term”the State”.


37. Application of the Principles contained in this Part:

The provision contained in this part shall not be enforced by any court, but the principles there in laid down are nevertheless fundamental in the government of the country and it shall be the duty of the State to apply these principles in making laws.


COMMENTS

Part IV Articles 37-51 contain what may be described as the positive obligation of the State and shall secure a social order in which social economic and political justice shall conform to all the institution of the national life. Wealth and its source of production shall not to be concentrated in the hand of the few but shall be distributed so ad to sub serve the common good.


Characteristics:

1.They are not enforceable. in any court and therefore, if a directive principle is infringed, no remedy is available to the aggrieved part in judicial proceeding.

2.They are fundamental in the government in the governance of the country and it shall be the duty of the State to apply these principles in making laws.


It was also quoted by Dr Ambedkar that “the constitution also wished to lay down the ideal before those who would be forming the government. The ideal is economic democracy whereby, as far as I am concerned, I understand to mean, one man one vote”.


We have left enough room for people with different ways of thinking, with regard to reaching of the ideal of economic democracy to strive in their own way. Without economic democracy, political democracy is meaningless. Directive principles ensure economic democracy.


Article 37 says that the Directive Principles shall not be enforceable by any court, makes the Directive Principles fundamental in the governance of the country and enacts that it shall be the duty of the state to apply the Directive Principles in making laws. However the courts are giving special importance to the directive principles vis-à-vis fundamentals right as regards their enforceability. The court can ever order the state enforcement of law leads to denial of a fundamental right. Neither fundamental right is superior to the directive principles nor one supersedes the other .The golden rule is that the fundamental rights and directive principles are to be harmoniously interpreted.