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    Doctrine of Colourable Legislation Part 3

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    Guddu Singh
    The document discusses the doctrine of colorable legislation in India. It begins by explaining that the doctrine is based on the principle of separation of powers and prevents the legislature from overstepping its authority. It then provides details on how the doctrine is applied in India, noting that legislation cannot indirectly do what it is not allowed to do directly. The Supreme Court of India has established tests to determine if a law is merely a "color" or disguise to legislate outside its powers, such as examining the effect and purpose of the law. The doctrine does not consider legislative intent or motive and instead focuses solely on the competency of the legislature to enact the law in question.

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    Doctrine of Colourable Legislation Part 3

    Uploaded by

    Guddu Singh
    104 views2 pages
    The document discusses the doctrine of colorable legislation in India. It begins by explaining that the doctrine is based on the principle of separation of powers and prevents the legislature from overstepping its authority. It then provides details on how the doctrine is applied in India, noting that legislation cannot indirectly do what it is not allowed to do directly. The Supreme Court of India has established tests to determine if a law is merely a "color" or disguise to legislate outside its powers, such as examining the effect and purpose of the law. The doctrine does not consider legislative intent or motive and instead focuses solely on the competency of the legislature to enact the law in question.

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    DOCTRINE OF COLOURABLE LEGISLATION PART 3

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    The document discusses the doctrine of colorable legislation in India. It begins by explaining that the doctrine is based on the principle of separation of powers and prevents the legislature from overstepping its authority. It then provides details on how the doctrine is applied in India, noting that legislation cannot indirectly do what it is not allowed to do directly. The Supreme Court of India has established tests to determine if a law is merely a "color" or disguise to legislate outside its powers, such as examining the effect and purpose of the law. The doctrine does not consider legislative intent or motive and instead focuses solely on the competency of the legislature to enact the law in question.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    104 views2 pages

    Doctrine of Colourable Legislation Part 3

    Uploaded by

    Guddu Singh
    The document discusses the doctrine of colorable legislation in India. It begins by explaining that the doctrine is based on the principle of separation of powers and prevents the legislature from overstepping its authority. It then provides details on how the doctrine is applied in India, noting that legislation cannot indirectly do what it is not allowed to do directly. The Supreme Court of India has established tests to determine if a law is merely a "color" or disguise to legislate outside its powers, such as examining the effect and purpose of the law. The doctrine does not consider legislative intent or motive and instead focuses solely on the competency of the legislature to enact the law in question.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    INTRODUCTION:-

    Doctrine of Colorable Legislation like any other constitutional law is a tool devised and applied
    by the Supreme Court of India to interpret various constitutional provisions. It is a guiding
    principle of immense utility while construing provisions relating to legislative competence.

    Before knowing what this doctrine is and how it is applied in India, let us first understand the
    genesis of Doctrine of Colorable Legislation.

    Doctrine of Colorable Legislation is built upon the founding stones of the Doctrine
    of Separation of Power. Separation of Power mandates that a balance of power is to be struck
    between the different components of the State i.e. between the Legislature, the Executive and the
    Judiciary. The primary function of the legislature is to make laws. Whenever Legislature tries to
    shift this balance of power towards itself then the Doctrine of Colorable Legislation is attracted
    to take care of Legislative Accountability.
    The literal meaning of Colorable Legislation is that under the ‘colour’ or ‘guise’ of the power
    conferred for one particular purpose, the legislature cannot seek to achieve some other purpose
    which it is otherwise not competent to legislate on.

    COLOURABLE LEGISLATION IN INDIA:-

     In India ‘Doctrine of Colorable Legislation’ signifies only a limitation of the law-making


    power of the legislature. It comes to know while the legislature purporting to act within its power
    but in reality, it has transgressed those powers.
     The doctrine of Colorable Legislation becomes applicable whenever legislation seeks to
    do in an indirect manner what it cannot do directly.
     In India, legislative powers of parliament and the state legislatures are conferred
    by Article 246 and distributed by List I, II, and III, in the seventh schedule of the Indian
    Constitution. The parliament have the power to make laws respect to any of the matters of the
    List II and the parliament and the state legislatures both have the power to make laws with
    respect to any of the matters of the List III and the residuary power of legislation is vested in the
    Parliament by virtue of Article 248, and List I.
     For making any law or of that law’s validity legislative competency is an issue that
    relates to how legislative powers must be shared between the centre and the state or it focuses
    only on the relationships between both of them. The main point is that the legislature having
    restrictive power cannot step over the field of competency. It is termed as the “fraud on the
    Constitution”.
     The whole Doctrine is based upon the maxim that “you cannot do what you cannot do
    directly”. “Colorable legislation” is thus bound up with incompetency and not tainted with bad
    faith or evil motive. A thing is colorable which in appearance only and not only in reality, what it
    purports to be.
     The Supreme Court of India in different judicial pronouncement has laid down the certain
    tests in order to determine the true nature of the legislation impeached as colorable:-
     The court must look to the substance of the impugned law, as distinguished from its form
    or the label which the legislature has given it. For the purpose of determining the substance of
    the impugned law, the court will examine two things, i.e. effect of the legislature and the object
    and purpose of the act.
     The Doctrine of Colorable Legislation has nothing to do with the motive of the
    legislation, it is in the essence a question of vires or power of the legislature to enact the law in
    question.
     The doctrine does not involve any question of bona fides or mala fides intention on the
    part of legislature. If the legislature is competent enough to enact a particular law, then whatever
    motive which impelled it to act are irrelevant.

    LIMITATIONS ON THE APPLICATION OF DOCTRINE OF COLORABLE


    LEGISLATION:-

     The Doctrine has no application where the powers of a legislature are not fettered by any
    Constitutional limitation.
     The Doctrine is also not applicable to Subordinate Legislation.
     The Doctrine does not involve any question of bona fides or mala fides on the part of the
    legislature. The whole doctrine revolves itself into the, question of competency of a particular
    legislature to enact a particular law.
     A logical corollary of the above-mentioned point is that the legislature does not act
    on Extraneous Considerations. There are always a presumption of constitutionality in favor of
    the statute. The principle of presumption of constitutionality was succinctly enunciated by
    constitutional bench in Ram Krishna Dalmia v. Shri Justice S.R. Tendolkar and Ors.
     When a legislature has the power to make law with respect to a particular subject, it also
    has all the ancillary and incidental power to make that law an effective one.
     The transgression of constitutional power by legislature may be patent, manifest or direct,
    but may also disguised, covert and indirect and it is only to this latter class of cases that the
    expression “colorable Legislation” is being applied.

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