"In spite of having a federal structure, the word Union is used and not a federation because of the unitary bias," Mukherjee said at a civic reception accorded by the West Bengal government here.
Citing the Keshavananda Bharti case during the 24th Amendment of the Constitution, he said, "Although the Parliament is vested with the Constituent power, the Supreme Court noted that this was the basic structure of the country and is best to maintain, to protect parliamentary democracy," Mukherjee said.
He said that the apex court also observed that if the executive and the legislature made any attempt to tamper with this basic structure by amending the Constitution, then a judicial review would follow to take the necessary steps.
"Why I am saying this, if we want to make a holistic progress of the nation, then we will have to defend and protect the Constitution as well as to plug any aberration," he observed. (MORE)
