State of West Bengal v. Anwar Ali Sarkar

Supreme Court of India · 11 January 1952 · 7 judges · 1952 AIR 75; 1952 SCR 284

By a majority of 6:1, the Court held Section 5(1) of the West Bengal Special Courts Act, 1950 void under Article 14, at least so far as it let the State Government send particular cases to a Special Court.

Facts

The West Bengal Special Courts Act, 1950, replacing a 1949 Ordinance, was enacted to provide for the speedier trial of certain offences. Section 5(1) allowed a Special Court to try such offences, classes of offences, cases or classes of cases as the State Government might direct, under a procedure departing from the Code of Criminal Procedure. By a notification of January 1950 the State directed that the case against the respondent and 49 others, arising from an armed raid on the Jessop factory at Dum Dum, be tried by a Special Court, which convicted them. He applied under Article 226 to quash the conviction. Gajen Mali, the respondent in the connected appeal, sought to stop a pending Special Court trial. A Special Bench of the Calcutta High Court held Section 5(1) void so far as it empowered the State to direct any case to the Special Court. The State appealed.

Questions before the Court

Does Article 14 apply to a law of criminal procedure, and did the Act's procedure differ substantially from the Code to the prejudice of the accused?
Could Section 5(1), read with the preamble's object of speedier trial, be sustained as resting on a reasonable classification?
Must a person challenging a law under Article 14 show that the legislature intended to discriminate against him?
Did the Special Court have jurisdiction to try the respondents' cases?

What the Court held

A rule of procedure is as much within Article 14 as substantive law. The Act departed substantially from the Code to the disadvantage of the accused: no committal proceedings or jury, no de novo trial on transfer, conviction for uncharged offences, and no revision. These were not minor differences.
Classification under Article 14 must rest on a real and substantial distinction with a reasonable relation to the object of the law. Das, J. put it as two conditions: an intelligible differentia, and a rational relation between that differentia and the object of the Act.
Section 5(1) laid down no basis or standard for selecting cases and left the choice to the unregulated discretion of the State Government. The need for speedier trial in the preamble could not supply a valid basis for the discrimination.
Where discrimination arises from the terms of the law itself, the person affected need not prove a hostile intention in the legislature, and the absence of intention to discriminate does not save the law.
At the least, the power to direct particular 'cases' to the Special Court permitted arbitrary selection and was void under Article 14. The Special Court had no jurisdiction, and the High Court rightly quashed the conviction and the pending proceedings. The appeals were dismissed.

Why it matters

The judgment applies Article 14 to a law of procedure and holds that a statute giving the executive unguided power to pick cases for a less favourable mode of trial is discriminatory on its face. Das, J. stated the two conditions for permissible classification, an intelligible differentia and its rational relation to the object of the Act, drawing on Chiranjit Lal and Balsara. The majority also rejected the argument that good faith or lack of hostile intention saves a discriminatory law.

In the Court's words

Copied from the official judgment; each passage links to its page.

“It has laid down no yardstick or measure for the grouping either of persons or of cases or of offences by which measure these groups could be distinguished from those who are outside the purview of the Special Act. The Act has left this matter entirely to the unregulated discretion of the provincial government. It has the power to pick out a case of a person similarly situate and hand it over to the special tribunal and leave the case of the other person in the same circumstance to be tried by the procedure laid down in the Criminal Procedure Code.”

Mahajan, J.Page 21 of the judgment

“But if it is established that the person complaining has been discriminated against as a result of legislation and denied equal privileges with others occupying the same position, I do not think that it is incumbent upon him, before he can claim relief on the basis of his fundamental rights, to assert and prove that in making the law, the legislature was actuated by a hostile or inimical intention against a particular person or class.”

Mukherjea, J.Page 27 of the judgment

“In the second place, assuming that the preamble throws any light upon the interpretation of the section, I am definitely of opinion that the necessity of a speedier trial is too vague, uncertain and elusive a criterion to form a rational basis for the discriminations made.”

Mukherjea, J.Page 29 of the judgment

“It is, therefore, clear, for the foregoing reasons, that the power to direct "cases" as distinct from "classes of cases" to be tried by a Special Court contemplates and involves a purely arbitrary selection based on nothing more substantial than the whim and pleasure of State Government and without any appreciable relation to the necessity for a speedier trial. Here the law lays an unequal hand on those who have committed intrinsically the same quality of offence.”

Das, J.Page 40 of the judgment

Provisions interpreted

Article 14, Constitution
Section 5(1), West Bengal Special Courts Act, 1950

Related judgments

Follows State of Bombay v. F.N. Balsara (1951)“Those principles were again considered and summarised by this Court in The State of Bombay v.F.N. Balsara” (page 33)

Case and bench

Parties: The State of West Bengal v. Anwar Ali Sarkar (Habib Mohamed, the State of Hyderabad and others: Interveners)
Case: Cases Nos. 297 and 298 of 1951 (Appellate Civil Jurisdiction)
Decided: 11 January 1952
Bench: Sastri, M. Patanjali (CJ), Fazal Ali, Saiyid, Mahajan, Mehr Chand, Mukherjea, B.K., Das, Sudhi Ranjan, Aiyar, N. Chandrasekhara, Bose, Vivian
Opinions: Majority 6:1. Separate opinions by Fazl Ali, Mahajan (agreeing with Mukherjea), Mukherjea, Das, Chandrasekhara Aiyar and Bose, JJ., all dismissing the appeals; Das, J. held only the power to refer individual 'cases' void. Patanjali Sastri, C.J. dissented and would have allowed the appeals.

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