Supreme Court Quarterly Digest - Constitution Of India [Jan-Mar, 2024]

Constitution - Supreme Court Quarterly Digest 2024 Article 13 – Scope of Judicial Review in matters of economic policy – Courts must adopt a less stringent form of judicial review while adjudicating challenges to legislation and executive action which relate to economic policy as compared to laws relating to civil rights such as the freedom of speech or the freedom of religion. The amendment to Section 31 of the RBI Act can be classified as a financial provision to the extent that it seeks to introduce a new form of a bearer banking instrument. However, any resemblance to an economic policy ends there. The amendments in question can be clubbed into two heads: first, provisions mandating non-disclosure of information on electoral financing; and second, provisions permitting unlimited corporate funding to political parties. Both these amendments relate to the electoral process. The Bonds were introduced only to curb black money in the electoral process, and protect informational privacy of financial contributors to political parties. The Union of India has itself classified the amendments as an “electoral reform”. Thus, the submission of the Union of India that the amendments deal with economic policy cannot be accepted. Association for Democratic Reforms v. Union of India, 2024 LiveLaw (SC) 118 : AIR 2024 SC 1441 Article 14 – Unlimited corporate funding – Arbitrariness of Section 182 - Removal of restrictions on political contributions is arbitrary and violates Article 14 of the Constitution – Unlimited contribution by companies to political parties is antithetical to free and fair elections because it allows certain persons/companies (including shell companies) to influence the electoral process and policy making. This is violative of the principle of free and fair elections and political equality captured in the value of “one person one vote”. The ability of a company to influence the electoral process through political contributions is much higher when compared to that of an individual. Companies and individuals cannot be equated for the purpose of political contributions. Companies before the amendment to Section 182 could only contribute a certain percentage of the net aggregate profits and could be classified between loss-making companies and profit-making companies for the purpose of political contributions. The underlying principle of this distinction was that it is more plausible that loss-making companies will contribute to political parties with a quid pro quo and not for the purpose of income tax benefits. The amended provision does not recognize that the harm of contributions by lossmaking companies in the form of quid pro quo is much higher. Thus, the amendment to Section 182 is manifestly arbitrary for (a) treating political contributions by companies and individuals alike; (b) permitting the unregulated influence of companies in the governance and political process violating the principle of free and fair elections; and (c) treating contributions made by profit-making and loss-making companies to political parties alike. The observations means that the law must not treat companies and individual contributors alike because of the variance in the degree of harm on free and fair elections. Association for Democratic Reforms v. Union of India, 2024 LiveLaw (SC) 118 : AIR 2024 SC 1441 Article 14 – Exemption of certain projects or activities from mandatory obtaining environment clearance – Unguided and blanket exemption, is, per se, arbitrary and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India – Item 6 grants exemption from the requirement of obtaining EC for “extraction or sourcing or borrowing of ordinary earth for linear projects, such as roads, pipelines, etc. Held, when an exception is sought to the requirement of obtaining EC, the exception must be specific. There is no specification about the quantum of ordinary earth, which can be extracted or the area which can be used to extract ordinary earth. “Linear projects” have not been defined making the term “linear projects” very vague. Even the amended item 6 continues to suffer from the same vice of arbitrariness, which Article 14 of the Constitution of India prohibits. The exemption granted without incorporating any safeguards is completely unguided and arbitrary and such blanket exemption completely defeats the very object of the EP Act. Hence, on account of the violation of Article 14, item 6 in the impugned notification, as well as the amended impugned notification, is struck down. (Para 25, 26 & 27) Noble M. Paikada v. Union of India, 2024 LiveLaw (SC) 252 Articles 14 and 51A - Appointment of Deputy Chief Ministers in the States - Submission that no such office is stipulated in the Constitution – Held, Appointment of Deputy Chief Ministers not unconstitutional. A Deputy Chief Minister is, first and foremost, a Minister in the Government of the State. The...

Supreme Court Quarterly Digest - Constitution Of India [Jan-Mar, 2024]

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