All Saints High School, Hyderabad v. Government of Andhra Pradesh

The presumption in favour of constitutional validity is easy to state and hard to apply, because a student is rarely told how a court saves a statute. This case supplies the first technique: reading down general words.

It is the bridge between the presumption and the remedy. Where general words, read literally, would take a statute beyond the legislature's power, the court does not strike the Act down; it reads the words in a narrower sense so that the Act stays within power.

The course states this case for its proposition and does not set out the facts or the provision that was in issue. Do not supply either. Use the case for the rule, and illustrate the rule from the decisions the course does describe.

It was observed:

"Where an Act is expressed in a language of a generality which makes it capable, if read literally, of applying to matters beyond the relevant legislative power, the Court will construe it in a more limited sense so as to keep it within power."

The rule follows from the presumption of validity. Courts begin from the position that the legislature intended to legislate within its competence, so where words admit of a reading that keeps the Act within power, that reading is preferred:

• In Santi Swarup Sarkar v. Pradeep Kumar Sarkar the Supreme Court held that if two interpretations of the same statute are possible, the one which validates the statute must be preferred.
• "It is well settled that where two constructions are possible, then the one which leans towards the constitutionality of the legislation should be accepted in preference to the one which has the effect of destroying it." (Atma Ram Budhia v. State of Bihar, AIR 1952 Pat. 359.)
• "Where two constructions are possible, the Court will adopt that which will ensure the smooth and harmonious working of the Constitution and eschew the other which will lead to absurdity or give rise to practical inconvenience or make well established provisions of existing law nugatory." (Chandra Mohan v. State of U.P., AIR 1966 SC 1987.)

The limit on the technique, which must appear in any answer that uses it: reading down is not a general power to narrow inconvenient words. In Oswal Agro Mills Ltd. v. CCE (1993) the Supreme Court noted that "The doctrine of reading down has been applied only to sustain the constitutionality of the statute".

The order of remedies. Reading down comes first; severance comes after. Take the familiar problem of a provision that penalises speech disturbing public order. Two readings are possible — the widest colloquial sense, or the narrower sense of disturbances affecting the community at large. The presumption of validity directs the court to the narrower reading if that keeps the law within constitutional limits (Atma Ram; All Saints). If even the narrower reading went beyond the permissible restriction, the court would then ask whether the invalid applications could be severed (R.M.D. Chamarbaugwalla v. Union of India). Only if the valid and invalid parts were inextricably mixed would the provision fall entirely — as in Romesh Thappar v. State of Madras and Chintaman Rao v. State of Madhya Pradesh, where the provision was, on its own contents, inseverable; contrast Kihota Hollohan, where the void part fell and the remainder, able to function independently, was upheld.

It opens the validity limb of the presumptions question, and it gives a problem answer its sequence: narrower reading, then severance, then invalidity.

It disposes of the submission that a statute must be struck down because, on its widest literal reading, it would reach matters outside the legislature's power. The width of the words is not by itself fatal.

It does not decide that a court may rewrite a provision. Reading down works only on words that can bear the narrower sense — the same limit the literal rule imposes in Jugalkishore v. Raw Cotton Co. — and, on Oswal Agro, it is available only to sustain constitutionality, not as a general instrument of construction.

A caution on the report. The course supplies the observation quoted above but neither the court nor the year. Quote the passage, name the case, and leave the citation out.