Indian Kanoon - Search engine for Indian Law

304. The Bill was subsequently modified and re-drafted by the Select Committee and was presented before the Assembly on 23rd March, 1950 after the Constitution had come into force. The Minister-in-charge moved that the Bill be taken into consideration, whereupon discussion on the Bill proceeded and it was finally passed by the Assembly on 29th March, 1950. The Bill received the assent of the Raj Pramukh of the State and was brought into force, having been published by notification dated 30th March, 1950. The point urged on behalf of the appellant was that the Bill was introduced in the State Legislature on a date prior to the date of the Constitution when Art. 304 and the proviso to it had not come into force, so that no prior sanction of the President was required for introduction of the Bill. The Bill having been validly introduced remained pending in the State Legislature under Art. 389 and the proceedings taken in the Legislature before the Constitution came into force were to be deemed to have been taken in the Legislature of the State which became seized of the Bill after the enforcement of the Constitution. It was further urged that no amendment was moved in the State Legislature after the Constitution came into force which could be hit by the restriction laid down in Art. 304(b) of the Constitution. The material provisions, including section 3 were enacted in the original form in which the Bill had already been introduced in December, 1949. In these circumstances, it was submitted that no occasion arose for complying with the requirements of the proviso. The Bill was validly introduced without the previous sanction of the President and no amendment was moved subsequently to that Bill requiring the President's sanction after the Constitution came into force, so that Act 5 of 1950 as passed by the Legislature on 29th March, 1950 and brought into force on 30th March, 1950 cannot be held to be void for non-compliance with the requirements of the proviso to Art.

The High Court, in this connection, relied on two earlier decisions of the same Court in George v. State of Travancore-Cochin,(1) and State v. Philipose Philip(2). In fact, the High Court, in the present case, expressed its decision in almost the same language as was contained in the case of George v. State(1). In the second case of State v. Philipose Philip (2 ) this aspect was not clearly discussed. The point, however, was considered in detail by a Full Bench of that High Court in Ulahannan Mathai v. State(3). The High Court interpreted the expression "No Bill or amendment shall be introduced or moved" in the proviso as requiring that the Bill should neither be introduced nor moved without the prior sanction of the President, and, since in the case of Act 5 of 1950, the Bill was moved for consideration, without the prior sanction of the President, on 23rd March, 1950, after the Constitution had come into force, there had been non-compliance with the proviso. The Court rejected the contention put forward before it that what the proviso really stipulates is that no Bill "shall be introduced" or "amendment moved" in the Legislature of a State without the previous sanction of the President. That argument was advanced on the basis of the maxim 'Reddendo singula singulis' which, according to Black's Interpretation of Laws, means :

"If any member desires to move an amendment which under the Constitution cannot be moved without the previous sanction or recommendation of the President, he shall annex to the notice required by these rules such sanction or recommendation conveyed through a Minister and the notice shall not be valid until this requirement is complied with."

Thus, the requirement of previous sanction of the President under the proviso to Art. 304 has to be satisfied by producing the sanction either before introducing the Bill or before moving the amendment, as the case may be. Rules relating to Select Committees on Bills are Nos. 298 to 305, amongst which Rule 300 is of importance and may be reproduced :

This Rule makes it clear that, before a Bill can be modified or redrafted by the Select Committee, amendments have to be moved by the members of the Committee and when any amendment is moved, the procedure in the Select Committee is to be the same as is followed in the House during the consideration stage of a Bill as far as practicable, though subject to such adaptations as the Speaker may consider necessary or convenient. This Rule, thus, envisages that the requirement of r. 81 in respect of an amendment moved in the House will have to be complied with when a similar amendment is moved in the Select Committee Learned counsel appearing for the respondent urged that, in interpreting r. 300, we should not enlarge its scope so as to include in it the applicability of such Rules as r. 81 which, according to him, can only be attracted when an amendment is moved in the House of the Legislature itself. Even if this submission were to be accepted by us, it appears that it will not be possible to evade the applicability of the proviso to Art. 304, because, when the Bill as reported by the Select Committee comes before the House again, the Minister-in- charge or the member moving the Bill will have to move the Bill for consideration in the House. At that stage, when he moves the Bill for consideration of the House in the modified or redrafted form the move made by him will amount to moving the original Bill with the amendments reported by the Select Committee. In such a case, obviously r. 81 would apply at that stage, so that, before the modified or amended Bill is moved in the House for consideration, the sanction of the President will have to be produced if the modification or redraft has the result of incorporating an amendment covered by the proviso to Art. 304. In these circumstances, we do not think that the language of the proviso requires to be interpreted in the manner accepted by the Full Bench of High Court of Travancore-Cochin in the case of Ulahannan Mathai v. State(1). The proviso will have to be complied with at the initial stage of the introduction of the Bill if it is applicable at that stage, whereas compliance will be required either at the stage when amendments are moved in the Select Committee, or when the Bill as reported by the Select Committee,is moved in the House for consideration, because of the requirement that no amendment can be moved without the previous sanction of the President. In the present case, the original introduction of the Bill was valid, because, at that stage, the proviso to Art. 304 was not in force at all as the Constitution had not yet come into force; while, subsequently, when the Bill was pending in the State Legislature, no amendment was moved in respect of which sanction of the President was required under the proviso. Section 3 of Act 5 of 1950 was passed by the House as it was contained originally in the validly introduced Bill and cannot, therefore, be held to be void for noncompliance with the proviso to Art. 304. This section being valid, either the Prohibition Order of 1119 or the Prohibition Order of 1950 must be held to have been validly continued in force by this Act 5 of 1950 and to have continued to remain in force thereafter under the proviso to s. 17(4) of the Essential Supplies (Temporary Powers) Act 24 of 1946. Under either of those Orders, the transactions entered into between the appellant and the respondent were prohibited and, having been entered into against the provisions of law, no party can claim any rights in respect of the three contracts in suit. The claim for damages for breach of those contracts by the respondent against the appellant was, therefore, not maintainable.