Case: Puranlal Lakhanpal Vs. The President Of India And Others

The case of the petitioner is that he is registered as an elector in the Parliamentary Constituency of Delhi. As such he has a right to stand for election from any Parliament constituency in India. Six seats are allotted to the State of Jammu and Kashmir in the House of the People (Lok Sabha). Ordinarily, the election to these seats should have been by direct election from the territorial constituencies in the State as provided by Art. 81(1); but the President modified that Article in so far as it relates to the State of Jammu and Kashmir by Para 5(c) of the Order in these words81 shall apply subject to the modification that the representatives of the State in the House of the ;People shall be appointed by the President on the recommendation of the Legislature of the State." The petitioner contends that the President had exceeded his powers when he made this modification, for he thereby substituted direct election to the House of the People by nomination which he could not do. This, it is said, was a radical alteration in Art. 81 as applied to the State of Jammu and Kashmir and was not justified as a modification under Art. 370 (1). He, therefore, prays that the modification made may be declared unconstitutional and a writ of quo warranto be issued against the persons nominated to the House of the People on the recommendation of the Legislature of the State of Jammu and Kashmir prohibiting them from acting as members of Parliament.

Court's reasoning:
The President thus has power to say by order that certain provisions of the Constitution will be excepted from application to the State of Jammu and Kashmir and on such order being made those provisions would not apply to that State. Besides this power of making exceptions by which certain provisions of the Constitution were not to apply to that State the President is also given the power to apply the provisions of the Constitution with such modifications as he thinks fit toPresident must, therefore, nominate only those who have been recommended by the Legislature of the State, which is elected on adult suffrage. Now the only way the Legislature can make a recommendation for this purpose is by voting. Therefore, in effect the modification made by the President is that the six seats to the House of the People from the State of Jammu and Kashmir will be filled by indirect election and not by direct election. The element of election still remains in the matter of filling these seats, though it has been made indirect. In these circumstances it may not be possible to say that there has been a radical alteration in Art. 81 by the modification effected by thewe have said already the object behind enacting Art. 370(1) was to recognise the special position of the State of Jammu and Kashmir and to provide for that special position by giving power to the President to apply the provisions of the Constitution to that State with such exceptions and modifications as the President might by order specify. We have already pointed out that the power to make exceptions implies that the President can provide that a particular provision of the Constitution would not apply to that State. If, therefore, the power is given to the President to efface in effect any provision of the Constitution altogether in its application to the State of Jammu and Kashmir it seems that when he is also given the power to make modifications that power should be considered in its widest possible amplitude. If he could efface a particular provision of the Constitution altogether in its application to the State of Jammu and Kashmir, we see no reason to think that the Constitution did not intend that he should have the power to amend a particular provision in its application to the State of Jammu and Kashmir. It seems to us that when the Constitution used the word "modification" in Art. 370(1) the intention was that the President would have the power to amend the provisions of the Constitution if he so thought fit in their application to the State of Jammu and"Words and Phrases" by Roland Burrows, the primary meaning of the word "modify" is given as "to limit" or "restrict" but it also means "to vary" and may even mean to "extend" or "enlarge." Thus in law the word "modify" may just mean "vary", i.e., amend; and when Art. 370(1) says that the President may apply the provisions of the Constitution to the State of Jammu and Kashmir with such modifications as he may by order specify it means that he may vary (i.e., amend) the provisions the Constitution in its application to the State of Jammu and Kashmir. We are therefore of opinion that in the context of the Constitution we must give the widest effect to the meaning of the word "modification" used in Art. 370 (1) and in that sense it includes an amendment. There is no reason to limit the word "modifications" as used in Art. 370(1) only to such modifications as do not make any "radical transformation." We are therefore of opinion that the President had the power to make the modification which he did in Art. 81 of the Constitution.