The Constitution of India contains provisions combining both the individual freedoms and social welfare. Individual freedoms are represented in Part III as Fundamental Rights (FR) and social welfare in Part IV as Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSP). There have been curious developments as to their relationship or so to say the predominance of one over the other. The Supreme Court of India was initially reluctant to give any value to Directive Principles (DP) vis-à-vis FR. Compelled by such a situation, the Parliament brought successive amendments to further the goal of welfarism. This led to an unpleasant situation of virtual tussle between legislature and judiciary. Of late, the judiciary has woken up to the reality of socioeconomic justice and interpreted both, i.e., FR and DP as integrated ones. They constitute the negative and positive aspects of human rights, respectively. This development has helped in the growth of the ambit of FR and specifically Article 21. The integrative approach has enriched the growth of constitutional jurisprudence.

The Constitution of India, the very basic document governing the nation, provides protection of individual rights and liberties as well as the promotion of collective goods. Part III of the Constitution enumerates the rights of individual as Fundamental Rights (FR) which are sacrosanct and inviolate, whereas Part IV provides certain principles which are fundamental in the governance of the country and which guide the institutions for lawmaking and governance. Part III rights are enforceable in nature, while Part IV principles are non-justiciable hence cannot be enforced in a court of law. So, it appears that they are not connected or related to each other. There was much controversy as to the interpretation of their relationship. But if we peep into the history of their formation and formulation, we can find that they were born out of the same desire to bring about socioeconomic and political democracy and are inherently connected to each other from their very birth. After initial reluctance, the Supreme Court of India has accepted the fact of their inherent integrity or rather it has moved many steps ahead and mostly obliterated the line of distinction between them by the canon of creative interpretation.

This paper seeks to discuss the historical aspect of their growth and analyze the relationship between them and its contribution to the growth of constitutional jurisprudence in India.

Law Review Journal, Evolution of the Relationship, Fundamental Rights, Directive Principles, Constitution of India, Fundamental Rights (FR), Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSP), Directive Principles (DP).