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CALQ Volume 4 Issue 4 | Book Review: A People's Constitution
Ashutosh P Shukla offers an insightful account of the development of the Constitution of India by reviewing Rohit De's book “A People’s Constitution”, published in Volume 4(4) of our Journal.
The review essentially aims at appreciating the basic premise of De’s book; that the traditional presumption of development of constitutional law in post-colonial India is mainly attributable to the political and legal elite is an incorrect presumption. Instead common, but not ordinary, people were the ones actually responsible for its development.
In order to garner support for the above argument, the author begins by contextualizing the role of the Supreme Court in a post-colonial Indian society while highlighting that constitutional law developed primarily by way of interactions between the petitioners and the apex court.
The author appreciates De’s choice of cases in his book to expound the sociopolitical situation surrounding bad legislations which infringed upon the rights of the citizens, and thereafter proceeds to shed light on these four major cases in his review.