and merits of the appeals – for the submission that our jurisdiction to try this case on merits cannot be taken away without injury to the basic postulates of the rule of law and of justice within a politically democratic constitutional structure. I do not think that we can consistently with the objects of justice including what is claimed as "political justice", which are parts of what is called the "basic structure", deny the right to claim and adjudication from this Court on exclusively legal issues (not political ones) between the majority party and the minority groups of parties, however, large and legally right the majority party may be and however small and legally wrong the minorities groups or parties may be. Can the legal rights and wrongs on such an issue be resolved in accordance with the objects of the Preamble anywhere other than this Court now? I think that it would be a very dangerous precedent to lay down that they can be and need be determined nowhere at all. That is what acceptance of total validity of Article 329-A (4) may mean if it bars our jurisdiction to hear and decide such a case on merits. 625. What was sought to be done by the Constitutional amendment may be politically very justifiable. The question before us however is whether it is also legally justifiable. Here we are back again in the realm of basic principles of justice. We are not to decide a political question here at all. But we have to decide legal questions even if they have as many legal issues have political consequences and repercussions which we cannot entirely ignore. Parhaps we have to go back to Marbury v. Madison (1803)1 Cranch 137 (supra) where Chief Justic Marshal said (at. p. 162): "The very essence of civil liberty certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws whenever he receives an injury. One of the first duties of Government is to afford that protection. In great Britain the King himself is sued in the respectful form of a petition, and he never fails to comply with the judgment of his court. In the 3rd vol. of his Commentaries, p. 23 Blackstone states two cases in which a remedy is afforded by mere opertion of law. 'In all other cases', he says it is a general and indisputable rule that where there is a legal right there is also a legal remedy by suit or action at law, whenever that right is invaded." 626. It is true that the right which the election petitioner claims is a purely statutory right. The right to come to this Court under Section 116-A of the Act of 1951 is also a creature of statute and can be taken away retrospectively. But where this taking away also involves the taking away of the right to be heard by this Court on a grievance whether justifiable or not, that a minority party is being oppressed by the majority, can be deny the spokesman of the minority even a right to be heard on merits? Such an issue is constitutional. Confession of our inability to resolve it judicially would be according to learned Counsel for the election petitioner a denial of "political justice". This issue is extrinsic so for as the Act of 1951 is concerned. The election petitioner has complained of the taking away of his right to be heard with a view to depriving him of "political" justice with an ulterior object and political motivation. I have dealt with the merits of the case to show that