Legal current affairs and landmark judgments

CLAT is a law entrance exam, so it is no surprise that legal news turns up in the GK section, and that the same judgments reappear as Legal Reasoning passages. A candidate who has followed the year's major rulings reads those passages faster and with more confidence, even though Legal Reasoning never requires prior legal knowledge.

The challenge is that courts produce an enormous volume of news. Most of it (bail orders, adjournments, routine appeals) does not matter for the exam. This guide shows you how to pick the rulings that do, how to note them, and which older doctrines you need to understand the new ones.

What to track

• Constitution Bench and other major Supreme Court rulings that settle a principle: fundamental rights, federalism, elections, the separation of powers.
• High Court rulings only when they are widely reported or settle a question of national importance.
• New laws and major amendments: what they replace, what they introduce and when they come into force.
• Legal institutions in the news: the Law Commission, the National Legal Services Authority, the Bar Council of India, the collegium.
• Appointments of judges and heads of legal bodies (note these late; they change).

The courts: background that recurs

Judges are appointed through the collegium system, which grew out of the Second Judges Case (1993) and the Third Judges Case (1998). In 2015 the Supreme Court struck down the National Judicial Appointments Commission created by the 99th Amendment, and the collegium continued.

Legal institutions

New laws you must know

• The criminal law codes: the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (replacing the IPC), the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (replacing the CrPC) and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (replacing the Evidence Act) came into force on 1 July 2024. See the new criminal codes.
• The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023: India's general law on the processing of digital personal data.
• The Constitution (106th Amendment) Act, 2023: one-third reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies, after the next delimitation.

Recent landmark rulings (as of 2026)

Pair these with the older landmarks, such as Kesavananda Bharati (1973), Maneka Gandhi (1978), Vishaka (1997) and K.S. Puttaswamy (2017). See constitutional landmarks.

How to note a judgment

Write one line per case: Case name — court and bench size — year — issue — holding — why it matters. Then write the principle in one sentence of your own. That sentence is what a Legal Reasoning passage will test.

A sample CLAT-style passage

For the first two decades after 1950, the question of how far Parliament could amend the Constitution kept returning to the Supreme Court. In early cases, the Court held that the power to amend under Article 368 extended to fundamental rights. In Golaknath (1967), however, a bench of eleven judges held by a narrow majority that Parliament could not amend fundamental rights so as to take away or abridge them.

Parliament responded with the Twenty-fourth Amendment in 1971, which stated expressly that Article 368 gives Parliament power to amend any provision of the Constitution. That amendment, among others, was challenged in [1], decided in April 1973 by a bench of thirteen judges, the largest the Court has ever assembled. By a majority of seven to six, the Court upheld Parliament's power to amend any part of the Constitution, including fundamental rights, but held that this power does not extend to altering the Constitution's basic structure. The judges did not give a closed list of what that structure contains. Later decisions have included features such as the supremacy of the Constitution, judicial review, federalism, secularism, free and fair elections and the separation of powers.

The case itself began as a challenge by the head of a religious institution in Kerala to state land reform laws that restricted how the institution's property could be managed. It grew into a hearing on the limits of the amending power that lasted several months.

The doctrine was soon tested. In 1975, deciding a dispute over the Prime Minister's election, the Court used it for the first time to strike down part of a constitutional amendment, holding that free and fair elections are part of the basic structure. In 1976, the Forty-second Amendment added clauses to Article 368 declaring that no amendment could be questioned in any court and that there was no limit on Parliament's amending power. In Minerva Mills (1980), the Court struck these clauses down, holding that a limited amending power is itself part of the basic structure.

The doctrine has since been applied to laws placed in the Ninth Schedule after the date of the 1973 judgment, and in 2015 to strike down the constitutional amendment that set up the National Judicial Appointments Commission. Supporters see it as the main safeguard against a majority rewriting the Constitution; critics argue that it gives unelected judges the final word on constitutional change.

Q1. Which case fills [1]?

(a) Maneka Gandhi v Union of India (b) Indira Nehru Gandhi v Raj Narain (c) Kesavananda Bharati v State of Kerala (d) S.R. Bommai v Union of India

Q2. According to the passage, what did Golaknath hold?

(a) Parliament cannot amend fundamental rights so as to take away or abridge them.
(b) Parliament can amend any part of the Constitution.
(c) The basic structure cannot be altered.
(d) Ninth Schedule laws are immune from review.

Q3. Which amendment's clauses were struck down in Minerva Mills?

(a) Twenty-fourth (b) Forty-second (c) Forty-fourth (d) Ninety-ninth

Q4. The judgment described in the passage was delivered by a majority of:

(a) 6:5 (b) 7:6 (c) 9:4 (d) 13:0

Q5. Which of the following is NOT listed in the passage as a feature later recognised as part of the basic structure?

(a) Judicial review (b) Federalism (c) Free and fair elections (d) The right to property

Answers:

1. (c) A 13-judge bench, April 1973, basic structure: Kesavananda Bharati. The other cases are real but decided different questions.
2. (a) Stated in the first paragraph.
3. (b) Stated in the fourth paragraph.
4. (b) Stated.
5. (d) The passage lists (a), (b) and (c). Background also helps: the right to property was removed from the fundamental rights by the 44th Amendment (1978) and is now a constitutional right under Article 300A, so it is an unlikely candidate for the basic structure.

Common mistakes

• Noting facts of a case, not its principle. The principle is what gets tested.
• Following every court story. Stick to rulings that settle a question.
• Forgetting overruled cases. Sita Soren (2024) overruled P.V. Narasimha Rao (1998); the pair is more memorable than either alone.
• Confusing "passed" with "in force" for new laws.

What to do next

• Build a one-page table of ten landmark cases with year and one-line holding.
• Add every major ruling this month with its principle in your own words.
• Revise Articles 32, 136, 141, 142, 143 and 226 until you can state each in a line.
• Read a legal reasoning plan for CLAT to see how these rulings become passages.