The Berubari Union
ABOUT CASE
The case of Berubari Union was the Presidential Reference Under Article 143(1) of the
Constitution of India, C.J. Justice Gajendragadkar delivered the unanimous opinion of the
Court on the enforcement of the Indo-Pak agreement relating to the Berubari union and the
exchange of enclaves submitted for consideration by a Bench consisting of eight judges headed
by B.P.Sinha. This dispute was settled by the 1958 Nehru-Noon Agreement, by which Pakistan
was to be given half of Berubari Union No. 12 and India was to hold the other half adjacent to
India.
Furthermore, four Cooch Behar enclaves adjacent to this section would have gone to Pakistan as
well. There was an issue concerning the Parliament’s power to move the territory of Berubari to
Pakistan. The Court held that the Preamble to the Constitution containing the declaration made
by the citizens of India in the exercise of their sovereign will is undoubtedly a key to opening the
minds of constitutional framers who can explain the general purposes for which the various
provisions in the Constitution have been made, but nevertheless, the Preamble is not part of the
Constitution. The observations in the Berubari case was also observed in the Keshavanada
Bharti’s Judgement and clarity were given.
It was held that the Preamble to the Constitution serves as a guide to opening the minds of the
framers and shows that the Preamble is not part of our Constitution and that it is not a source of
the many powers bestowed on the Government under the provisions of the Constitution for the
general reason for which they rendered the several provisions of the Constitution.
FACTS
The states of Punjab and Bengal were to be partitioned in this situation. The British Government
declared its plan on February 20, 1947, to shift power to Indian hands in British India by June
1948. On June 3, 1947, the Government released a resolution as to the process by which the
transition of power would take place. The British Parliament passed the 1947 Indian
Independence Act on July 18, 1947. On August 15, 1947, which was the specified day, this Act
came into effect.
As it was proclaimed on the appointed day of two separate dominions, it would be formed in
India to be known as India and Pakistan respectively. That was given by section 2 of the Act
pursuant to the provisions of b of the provisions of s. 2. The territories of India shall be those
territories under the jurisdiction of His Majesty which were included in British India
immediately before the specified day, with the exception of those territories which are covered
by sub-s. (2) from s. 2 were to be Pakistan’s territories. Sub-s, Section3. (1) provided, inter alia,
that the Province of Bengal, constituted under the Government of India Act of 1935, ceases to
exist from the appointed date, and that two new Provinces, known respectively as East Bengal
and West Bengal, are to be constituted instead.
A commission was appointed as its chairman for the distribution of the state of Bihar by Sir
Cyril Redcliffe. A boundary between India and Pakistan was created, known as the Redcliffe
line. After this, on the exact place of the apportionment, there were some tiffs between India and
Pakistan. By giving some thanas to India, Sir Radcliffe allocated the Jalpaiguri district between
the two nations while remaining thanas to Pakistan. He omitted one, i.e., Berubari Union No.
12, during the process, and was subsequently awarded to India on August 12, 1947. The
commission’s absence and incorrect portrayal on the map gave Pakistan the right to claim the
region as its own.
The Indian Constitution entered into force on January 26, 1950, during both of these
procedures, and Article 1 of our Constitution specifies that India is a Union of States and is
referred to in Section A, B and C of the First Schedule of the Constitution. In Part A of the
Indian Constitution, West Bengal was included and Berubari Union No. 12 was also included as
it was awarded by the boundary commission to India. In 1952, for the first time, the Pakistani
Government retained its claim over the Berubari Union.
The areas under the Berubari Union remained within the territory of India until West Bengal was
a part of it. The result was the Act 1960 of the Constitution (9th Amendment). The aim of this
Amendment is to read as follows: Agreements between the Governments of India and Pakistan
of September 10 1958, October 23, 1959, and January 11, 1960, resolved certain boundary
disputes between the Governments of India and Pakistan concerning the boundaries of the States
of Assam, Punjab and West Bengal and the territories of the Union. The conflict was settled in
1958 by an agreement in which India was awarded half of the Berubari Union while India kept
the other half.
