The ongoing parliamentary session has witnessed the introduction and passage of legislation on important issues, two of which, in particular, have been in the news for their attempt to seemingly unsettle judicial decisions.
The Central Armed Police Forces (General Administration) Bill, 2026 seeks to set aside the judgment in Sanjay Prakash v. Union of India (2025), which mandated the progressive reduction of deputed IPS officers in CAPF cadres. The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026 undermines the right of self-determination recognised in NALSA v. Union of India (2014).
These developments raise an important question regarding the constitutional validity of legislation that directly alters the outcome of a judgment.
Under the Constitution, legislative responses to judicial decisions are not prohibited and, in fact, such dialogue between institutions is an ordinary feature of constitutional governance. Parliament has, on several occasions, resorted to amendments to undertake legislative correction, which have subsequently been upheld by the Court itself. However, there are limits to this process.
The locus classicus on this subject is the judgment in Shri Prithvi Cotton Mills v. Broach Borough Municipality (1969), where the Court held that although the legislature cannot directly overrule a judgment, it may remove the basis of the decision by enacting an appropriate law. The precise meaning of this distinction can be understood by examining the facts of Prithvi Cotton Mills, where the validity of a municipal tax imposed on the basis of capital value of land was challenged by the assessees.
In an earlier decision, the Supreme Court had struck down this method, holding that the statute permitted taxation only on annual letting value and not capital valuation. In response, the legislature amended the statutory framework to retrospectively permit capital value-based taxation and validated past levies. The Court was then required to examine whether this amendment was constitutional.
The Court held that the legislature has the power to validate a tax declared invalid, provided the cause for its validity is removed. In other words, the basis for finding a provision unconstitutional or invalid, must be cured. It held,
“Ordinarily, a court holds a tax to be invalidly imposed because the power to tax is wanting or the statute or the rules or both are invalid or do not sufficiently create jurisdiction. Validation of a tax so declared illegal may be done only if the grounds of illegality or invalidity are capable of being removed and are in fact removed and the tax thus made legal. Sometimes this is done by providing for jurisdiction where jurisdiction has not been properly invested before. Sometimes this is done by re-enacting retrospectively a valid and legal taxing provision and then by fiction making the tax already collected to stand under the re-enacted law. Sometimes the legislature gives it own meaning and interpretation of the law under which the tax was collected and by legislative flat makes the new meaning binding on courts. The legislature may follow any one method or all of them and while it does so it may neutralise the effect of the earlier decision of the court which becomes ineffective after the change of the law.”
To give another example, consider a law regulating public assembly which requires prior police permission for any gathering of more than 50 persons, but does not prescribe any criteria for granting or refusing such permission. The law is challenged and struck down by the Court on the ground that it confers unguided and arbitrary discretion on the executive, thereby violating Article 14 and the freedom of assembly under Article 19(1)(b). The Court notes, in particular, the absence of clear standards, timelines, or safeguards against misuse.
Parliament subsequently amends the law. The amended statute retains the requirement of prior permission, but introduces specific criteria for refusal such as threats to public order, mandates a time-bound decision, requires written reasons for denial and provides for an appeal mechanism. When the amended law is challenged, the Court is likely to uphold it on the ground that the legislature has addressed the defect identified earlier by structuring discretion and embedding procedural safeguards. The earlier judgment is rendered ineffective not because it has been overridden, but because the law itself now operates on a different constitutional footing.
However, there are limits to this principle. Parliament cannot directly overrule a judgment without altering its legal basis. This is illustrated by the decision in Indira Nehru Gandhi v Raj Narain (1975), where The Constitution (Thirty-Ninth Amendment) Act, 1975 was challenged. The amendment was passed in the aftermath of the Allahabad High Court decision setting aside the election of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. It effectively immunised the election of the Prime Minister from judicial review. It further provided that any election declared void by a Court prior to the amendment would be deemed valid, thereby effectively overruling the Allahabad High Court judgment.
This amendment was struck down by the Court on several grounds, one of which was that it did not alter the legal basis on which the earlier judgment had been delivered. Instead, it sought to nullify that judgment directly. As the Court observed:
“There is also nothing to show that the amending body validated the election with reference to any change of the law which formed the foundation of the judgment. The cases cited by the Solicitor General to show that a competent Legislature has power to validate an invalid election do not indicate that there can be a validation without changing the law which invalidated the election.”
In summary, parliament may alter the basis on which the Court delivered its judgment and cure the defects identified, but it cannot simply reintroduce a provision or overrule the judgment without addressing its underlying reasoning.
The CAPF and Transgender Bills must be assessed in this backdrop. First, the Supreme Court’s judgment in the CAPF case was premised on concerns of structural imbalance - particularly the dominance of deputation from the Indian Police Service and the resulting lack of parity and autonomy for cadre officers. These were not incidental observations; they formed the basis of the Court’s reasoning. The Court had observed,
“Keeping in mind the twin objectives of service mobility of the cadre officers of CAPF thereby removing stagnation on the one hand and the operational/functional requirement of the forces on the other hand, we are of the view that the number of posts earmarked for deputation in the cadres of the 67 CAPFs upto the level of Senior Administrative Grade (SAG) should be progressively reduced over a period of time, say within an outer limit of two years.”
The proviso to Section 3 of the CAPF Bill states that 50% of the posts in the rank of Inspector General (which falls within the Senior Administrative Grade) shall be filled by deputation. This does not, in a strict sense, amount to legislative overruling of the judgment. The Court did not prohibit deputation, but envisaged its gradual reduction while maintaining operational balance. By fixing deputation at a defined level, the statutory framework may, therefore, be seen as a legislative choice within that broader space. At the same time, the absence of a clear pathway for progressive reduction raises a question as to whether the framework fully aligns with the trajectory contemplated by the Court. It may also be argued that parliament has not yet exhausted the two-year window indicated by the Court and may choose to implement such reduction within that time-frame.
The position is different in the case of the amendments to the Transgender Persons Act. In NALSA, the Supreme Court recognised the right to self-identify one’s gender as an aspect of dignity, autonomy and expression under Articles 19 and 21. The Court was clear that gender identity is not determined by biological criteria, but by self-perception. This was not a matter of statutory interpretation, but a conclusive finding of the Court. The earlier version of the statute reflected this position, expressly recognising that a transgender person “shall have a right to self-perceived gender identity.” [Section 4(2)] The proposed amendment omits this provision altogether, while simultaneously redefining “transgender person” in terms that exclude self-perceived identity, replacing it with categories that are explicitly biological and externally verifiable.
The issue here is not one of legislative overruling in the traditional sense. Parliament is not curing a defect identified by the Court, nor is it altering the statutory basis on which the judgment rested. Instead, it is enacting a law that is prima facie inconsistent with a fundamental right as recognised by the Court.
Swapnil Tripathi leads Charkha, the Constitutional Law Centre at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.
Views are personal.