The Principle of Harmonious Interpretation: The Approach of Indian Courts

The Constitution is the Supreme law of the land in India, anything that is not in consonance with its provisions is considered as ultravires. When conflicts arise between the provisions of the Constitution certain rules of interpretation are used to resolve the problem. This paper focuses on one such rule known as ‘Principle of Harmonious Interpretation’. The rule is of extreme significance as it seeks to justify the very intention of the framers of the constitution while making the provisions and it harmonizes conflicting provisions to arrive at a solution. The main objective of the paper is to understand the approach of Indian courts towards the harmonious rule, before and after independence with the help of some case laws and the challenges of the same.