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Ranjan Sinha & Anr. v. Ajay Kumar Vishwakarma & Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2017 INSC 575Decided 3 Jul 2017
Civil Appeal No. 8121 of 2004
Chief Justice J.S. Khehar · Justice N.V. Ramana · Dr. Justice D.Y. Chandrachud

Background

After Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar in 2000, the new state set up a Registration Tribunal and invited fresh applications from anyone meeting the (more lenient) transitional qualifications under Section 31 of the Pharmacy Act, 1948, to be entered in a "First Register" of pharmacists. Diploma-holding pharmacists already validly registered objected, arguing that Jharkhand had no power to prepare a fresh First Register because the old undivided Bihar had already done so decades earlier, and only the stricter, qualification-based route under Section 32 should now apply. The Jharkhand High Court agreed with the objectors and quashed the state's notification and Tribunal; the state and some registrants appealed to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that under Sections 84 and 85 of the Bihar Reorganisation Act, laws and registers validly made for the undivided State of Bihar continue to apply to the territories now forming Jharkhand unless expressly modified: there is no "clean slate" merely because a new state is created. It ruled that the First Register already prepared and published by undivided Bihar must be treated, for pharmacists whose recorded residential addresses fall within Jharkhand's territory, as Jharkhand's own First Register; Jharkhand had no separate power to prepare a new First Register of its own under the more lenient Section 31 route. Any further additions to the register can only be made under the stricter Section 32 procedure requiring the Pharmacy Council's Education Regulations qualifications. The Court accordingly upheld the High Court's quashing of Jharkhand's fresh Registration Tribunal and notification, and disposed of a companion appeal involving an analogous Madhya Pradesh/Chhattisgarh dispute on the same principle.

Lesson Learnt

When a new state is carved out of an existing one, the parent state's laws, registers, and administrative records continue in force for the new state's territory by default: the new state cannot simply start from scratch or apply a more lenient standard than what already governed those same people and places.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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