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Union of India v. Rajendra N Shah & Anr.

Civil Appeal · 2021 INSC 340Decided 20 Jul 2021
Civil Appeal Nos. 9108-9109 of 2014
Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman · Justice B.R. Gavai · Justice K.M. Joseph

Background

Parliament passed the Constitution (97th Amendment) Act, 2011, inserting a new Part IXB into the Constitution to regulate "cooperative societies" nationwide: a subject that the Constitution otherwise reserves exclusively to state legislatures (Entry 32, State List). The Gujarat High Court struck down this entire Part IXB, holding it needed, but never received, ratification by at least half the state legislatures, as required for constitutional amendments that affect the division of powers between the Centre and the states. The Union of India appealed to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

By majority (Nariman and Gavai, JJ.), the Court agreed that Part IXB did affect the states' exclusive domain over cooperative societies and therefore required ratification by half the states under the proviso to Article 368(2), since it was never ratified, the amendment was unconstitutional as to cooperative societies within individual states. However, applying the doctrine of severability, the majority held that the part of the amendment dealing specifically with multi-state cooperative societies (a subject already within Parliament's own domain) could survive independently and remain valid. Justice K.M. Joseph dissented on this narrow severability point, reasoning that the surviving provisions were too dependent on the now-invalid provisions to stand on their own. The net result: Part IXB was struck down for ordinary (state-level) cooperative societies but upheld for multi-state cooperative societies, and the separately-added Article 19(1)(c) (right to form cooperative societies) and Article 43B (promoting cooperatives) were left untouched.

Lesson Learnt

Even a constitutional amendment passed by Parliament can be partly struck down if it encroaches on subjects reserved for the states without following the special ratification procedure required for such changes, but courts will try to save whatever part of the law is workable and constitutionally sound, rather than discarding the entire amendment.

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

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