Chintaman Rao v State of Madhya Pradesh (Supreme Court, 1950) — what makes a restriction "reasonable"

Every clause from (2) to (6) of Article 19 speaks of "reasonable restrictions". This short judgment gives the phrase its settled meaning and the settled allocation of the question to the courts. It is cited whenever a law under Article 19 is attacked as going further than its object requires.

The Central Provinces and Berar Regulation of Manufacture of Bidis (Agricultural Purposes) Act, 1948, a law in force at the commencement of the Constitution, provided that the Deputy Commissioner might by notification fix a period to be an agricultural season for the villages he specified, and that during that season no person should manufacture bidis, or employ any person to do so, in those villages. Its object was to secure labour for agriculture. The petitioners, who manufactured bidis, challenged the orders made under it as infringing Article 19(1)(g). The Bench was Kania C.J., Mahajan, Mukherjea, S.R. Das and Chandrasekhara Aiyar JJ.; Mahajan J. delivered the judgment on 8 November 1950.

1. Is a total prohibition of bidi manufacture during the agricultural season a "reasonable restriction" in the interests of the general public under Article 19(6)?
2. Is the legislature's own view of what is reasonable conclusive?

The meaning of "reasonable restriction". "The phrase "reasonable restriction" connotes that the limitation imposed on a person in enjoyment of the right should not be arbitrary or of an excessive nature, beyond what is required in the interests of the public. The word "reasonable" implies intelligent care and deliberation, that is, the choice of a course which reason dictates. Legislation which arbitrarily or excessively invades the right cannot be said to contain the quality of reasonableness" unless it strikes a proper balance between the freedom guaranteed by Article 19(1)(g) and the social control permitted by clause (6).

Applied. The object of the Act could have been achieved by restricting the employment of agricultural labour in bidi manufacture during the season "without prohibiting altogether the manufacture of bidis". A prohibition that reached everyone, whether or not they had anything to do with agriculture, "had no reasonable relation" to the object in view, and so was not a law imposing reasonable restrictions within clause (6). The Court added that even so far as the Act could be read as restricting only agricultural labour it could not be saved, because its language was wide enough to cover restrictions both within and without the limits of permissible legislative action, and "so long as the possibility of its being applied for purposes not sanc- tioned by the Constitution cannot be ruled out, it must be held to be wholly void."

Who decides. "The determination by the legislature of what constitutes a reasonable restriction is not final or" conclusive; "it is subject to the supervision by this Court. In the matter of fundamental rights, the Supreme Court watches and guards the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and in exercising its functions it has the power to set aside an Act of the Legislature if it is in violation of the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution." The Act did not stand the test of reasonableness and was void, and the orders under it were set aside.

A restriction is reasonable only if it is not arbitrary or excessive and goes no further than the public interest requires, striking a proper balance between the freedom and the social control the clause permits. A law that could have achieved its object by a narrower means, and that is worded so widely that it may be applied for purposes the Constitution does not sanction, is void. Whether a restriction is reasonable is for the courts.