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7. The Constitution Bench of Supreme Court in the case of Subramanian Swamy vs. Director, Central Bureau of Investigation and another and Center for Public Interest Litigation vs. Union of India reported in (2014) 8 SCC 682 while considering the provisions of Section 6-A of DSPE Act 1946 held as under in regard to Article 14 of Constitution of India:-

“39. Article 14 of the Constitution incorporates concept of equality and equal protection of laws. The provisions of Article 14 have engaged the attention of this Court from time to time. The plethora of cases dealing with Article 14 has culled out principles applicable to aspects which commonly arise under this Article. Among those, may be mentioned, the decisions of this Court in Chiranjit Lal Chowdhuri[60], F.N. Balsara[61], Anwar Ali Sarkar[62], Kathi Raning Rawat[63], Lachmandas Kewalram Ahuja[64], Syed Qasim Razvi[65], Habeeb Mohamed[66], Kedar Nath Bajoria[67] and innovated to even associate the members of this Court to contribute their V.M. Syed Mohammad & Company[68]. The most of the above decisions were considered in Budhan Choudhry[69].

75. The Court held as under:-

“16. A long line of decisions of this Court that have explained the meaning of equality guaranteed by Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution and laid down tests for determining the constitutional validity of a classification in a given case immediately assume importance. These pronouncements have by now authoritatively settled that Article 14 prohibits class legislation and not reasonable classification. Decisions starting with State of West Bengal v. Anwar Ali (AIR 1952 SC 75) down to the very recent pronouncement of this Court in Dr. Subramanian Swamy v. Director, CBI and Anr. (AIR 2014 SC 2140) have extensively examined and elaborately explained that a classification passes the test of Article 14 only if (i) there is an intelligible differentia between those grouped together and others who are kept out of the group; and (ii) There exists a nexus between the differentia and the object of the legislation.”