Friend Of The Court Season 2: The Basic Structure Case

The Anil Divan Foundation has announced the launch of Season 2 of its podcast series Friend of the Court on Constitution Day, November 26, 2023. The prologue to the series is out now and can be accessed on any major podcast platform or by clicking the link below.

This season exclusively focuses on the story of India’s most important judgement: Kesavananda Bharati vs State of Kerala. The judgement, which turned 50 this year, gave us the basic structure doctrine—it remains the guiding light for our constitutionalism and our democracy.

Over seven fascinating episodes, the season reconstructs the case against the backdrop of contemporary political events. It also looks at the events leading up to the case, its aftermath and legacy. This is a 13-year constitutional saga that eventually draws to a close in 1980. It is a story about fundamental rights, about a tussle between the judiciary and the executive, and about the endurance of the Constitution. As debates over rewriting the Constitution gather momentum, and questions are raised inside and outside Parliament on the legitimacy of the basic structure doctrine, it has become more crucial than ever to revisit Kesavananda, what it means, and everything it stands for.

This story has been told in the form of a narrative podcast, featuring interviews with surviving participants, lawyers, journalists and other experts, as well as news clips, archival material and courtroom notes taken by Anil Divan.

Speakers featured this season include lawyers who participated in the case (Sandeep Thakore, Yazdi Dandiwala) former judges (Justice Michael Kirby, Justice Rohinton Nariman, Justice Santosh Hegde), senior lawyers (AK Ganguli, Arvind Datar, KK Venugopal, Prashant Bhushan, Navroz Seervai) journalists and writers (Ajoy Bose, Nayantara Sahgal) and scholars (Gautam Bhatia, Lawrence Liang, Namita Wahi).

In addition to interviews, the show also has drawn on personal memoirs, legal scholarship, a vast database of Times of India news clips, senior advocate Anil Divan’s courtroom notes and audio-visual archival material.

This season is narrated by award-winning journalist and writer Raghu Karnad. It has been written and researched by Ramya Boddupalli and Bhavya Dore, with legal research and fact-checking by Aishwarya Chaturvedi. The season was produced by All Things Small, with script editing by Supriya Nair, production by Gaurav Vaz and audio production and music score by Saachi Rajadhyaksha. Lawrence Liang, Ranvir Singh, Shyam Divan and Vivek Divan were advisors on this series.

The first two episodes will be available on November 26, 2023, and the next 5 episodes will be released every Monday after that.

Friend of the Court’s award-winning Season 1 launched on October 31, 2022, and focussed on three major constitutional cases fought by the late senior advocate Anil Divan. It is available on Spotify and every major audio streaming platform.

For any further information or interview requests, please contact: Ramya Boddupalli, Project Lead at a.ramya.b@gmail.com

About the Foundation

The Anil Divan Foundation was established in 2018 to support legal education and research in India. The podcast is its flagship research project through which it aims to narrate major constitutional stories in an engaging manner for a lay listener. For more information go to: anildivanfoundation.org. Follow ADF on Instagram and Twitter for updates.