State of West Bengal v Anwar Ali Sarkar (Supreme Court, 1952) — the test of reasonable classification

The twin tests of Article 14, an intelligible differentia and a rational relation to the object of the law, come from this judgment. It is also the leading example of a law failing the test because it hands the executive an unguided choice; read it with Kathi Raning Rawat, where a similar law with a stated objective was upheld.

The West Bengal Special Courts Ordinance, 1949, replaced in March 1950 by the West Bengal Special Courts Act, 1950, was intituled "An Act to provide for the speedier trial of certain offences", and its preamble declared that "it is expedient to provide for the speedier trial of certain offences". Section 3 let the State Government constitute Special Courts, section 4 provided for special judges, and section 5(1) provided: "A Special Court shall try such offences or classes of offences or cases or classes of cases, as the State Government may by general or special order in writing, direct." The Act laid down a procedure for those courts that departed from the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Anwar Ali Sarkar and 49 others were charged with offences committed in an armed raid on the Jessop Factory at Dum Dum. By a notification of 26 January 1950 under section 5(1) the Governor sent the case to a Special Court, which convicted and sentenced them. The respondent applied to the Calcutta High Court under Article 226 for certiorari on the ground that section 5(1) was void under Article 13(2) as denying the equal protection of the laws. A Full Bench of five judges quashed the conviction; Harries C.J., with whom Das and Banerjee JJ. concurred, applied the test of reasonable classification, and Das Gupta J. went further, holding section 5(1) unconstitutional in its entirety because "The Act lays down no principle on which selection of “classes of offences” or “classes of cases” should be made by the State Government." The State appealed.

Does section 5(1), by letting the State Government direct which offences, classes of offences, cases or classes of cases a Special Court shall try under a special procedure, deny the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by Article 14?

The appeal was dismissed by a majority; Patanjali Sastri C.J. dissented, finding it "difficult to hold that section 5 (1) in whole or in part is discriminatory", since the section did not by its own force apply the special procedure to anyone and it was the Government's notification that did so.

The test. The majority judgments restated the doctrine of classification. "In order to pass the test, two conditions must be fulfilled, namely, that the classification must be founded on an intelligible differentia which distinguishes those that are grouped together from others and that that differentia must have a rational relation to the object sought to be achieved by the Act. The differentia which is the basis of the classification and the object of the Act are distinct things and what is necessary is that there must be a nexus between them." Article 14 "forbids class legislation in the sense of making improper discrimination by conferring privileges or imposing liabilities upon persons arbitrarily selected out of a large number of other persons similarly situated in relation to the privileges sought to be conferred or the liability proposed to be imposed", but "it does not forbid classification for the purpose of legislation, provided such classification is not arbitrary". Classification "must be based on some real and substantial distinction bearing a just and reasonable relation to the objects sought to be attained and cannot be made arbitrarily and without any substantial basis." The legislature "may fix the age at which persons shall be deemed competent to contract between themselves, but no one will claim that competency to contract can be made to depend upon the stature or colour of the hair."

The presumption of constitutionality. Fazl Ali J. formulated seven principles, the first being that "The presumption is always in favour of the constitutionality of an enactment, since it must be assumed that the legislature understands and correctly appreciates the needs of its own people, that its laws are directed to problems made manifest by experience". The compilations later restate these as the propositions of Dalmia.

Why the Act failed. "Speedier trial" in the preamble was no basis of classification: "to say that the reference to speedier trial in the preamble of the Act is the basis of classification is to read into the Act something which it does not contain". Section 5(1) let the State Government "send before the Special Court any case, whatever its nature, whether it has arisen out of a particular incident or relates to a crime of normal occurrence, whether the offence involved is grave or simple, whether it needs more expeditious trial or not. Thus, we have before us an enactment which does not make any reasonable classification and which confers on the executive an uncontrolled and unguided power of discrimination." The line drawn was artificial: "On one side of the line are grouped those cases which the State Government chooses to assign to the Special Court; on the other side stand the rest which the State Government does not think fit and proper to touch." And "Discrimination may not appear in the statute itself but may be evident in the administration of the law. If an uncontrolled or unguided power is conferred without any reasonable and proper standards or limits being laid down in the enactment, the statute itself may be challenged and not merely the particular administrative act."

A law that subjects some persons to a special procedure is valid only if the class it picks out rests on an intelligible differentia having a rational nexus with the object of the law. A statute that leaves the choice of cases to the unguided discretion of the executive makes no classification at all and is void under Article 14, however the power is in fact used.

A Saurashtra Ordinance with a similar special procedure was upheld. Its preamble stated the object, public safety, the maintenance of public order and the preservation of peace, so that there was "something in the Ordinance itself to guide the State Government to apply the special procedure not to any and every case but only to those cases or offences which have a rational relation to or connection with the main object and purpose of the Ordinance"; "The clear recital of a definite objective furnishes a tangible and rational basis of classification to the State Government". The same rule was applied in the advisory opinion on the Special Courts Bill: special courts are valid where the law itself classifies the offences or lays down clear guidelines and the procedure is not substantially different from the ordinary one.