They also sought to have the Seventeenth Amendment – which had placed the Punjab Act in the Ninth Schedule – declared ultra vires.

It was in this case that the then Chief Justice Koka Subba Rao had first invoked the doctrine of prospective overruling.

He had taken import from American law where jurists like George F. Canfield, Robert Hill Freeman, John Henry Wigmore and Benjamin N. Cardozo had considered this doctrine to be an effective judicial tool.

Justifying his stand, he held that: The judges who delivered the minority judgement in the Golaknath case dissented with the view of the invocation of the doctrine of prospective overruling.

It is submitted here that the doctrine of prospective overruling in anyway does not supersede the already existing doctrine but simply tries to enrich the existing and rather complex practice with regard to the effects of new judicial decisions, by the adoption of an alternative discretionary device to be employed in appropriate cases.

They can also be sustained on the ground that they do not affect the basic structure of the constitution or on the fact that they are reasonable restrictions on the fundamental rights in public interest.