ON APRIL 8, 2026, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Union government in the Sabrimala Review proceedings, argued against the widening of judicial review through the concept of ‘constitutional morality’. He criticised the Supreme Court’s reliance on the concept to nullify legislative and executive actions when no other constitutional ground could be found for the same. Denouncing it as a “vague and subjective” notion, he contended that it is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution and has evolved through judgments such as Joseph Shine v. Union of India (2018) and Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India (2018). The Solicitor General insisted that when the framers of the Constitution had referred to the term ‘morality’ in Article 25 of the Constitution, they had meant public morality, and not some abstract notion of constitutional morality.
Such allegations warrant discussion over what constitutional morality truly entails. While cynics have portrayed the concept as a vague and subjective catchphrase used to impose the moral values of the adjudicating judge over the public, supporters contend that the concept is neither a novel invention of judicial guile nor is it a “vague and subjective” concept that can be moulded according to the caprice of the person applying it. For the latter, it is a notion that embeds the Indian constitutional discourse; as the late M.P. Singh argues, it is “the guiding spirit to achieve the transformation, which, above all, the Constitution seeks to achieve.”
A closer look reveals that the meaning of constitutional morality has not been static. It has evolved considerably from its original meaning in the Indian constitutional discourse. Nevertheless, one may still find certain common motifs anchoring the concept.
