Indian Kanoon - Search engine for Indian Law

Be that as it may, we are clearly of the opinion that the judgment dated September 10, 1990, is not correct and we specifically record our overruling of the same. The doctrine of Separation of Powers and the constitutional convention of the three organs of the State, having regard and respect for each other, is enough answer to the plea raised on behalf of the petitioners founded on the doctrine of Separation of Powers. We cannot strike down a legislation which we have on an independent scrutiny held to be within the legislative competence of the enacting legislature merely because the legislature has re-enacted the same legal provisions into an Act which, ten years before, were incorporated in an ordinance and were found to be unconstitutional in an erroneous judgment of the High Court and before the error could be corrected in appeal the Ordinance itself lapsed. It has to be remembered that by the impugned Act the Parliament has not overruled the judgment of the High Court nor has it declared the same law to be valid which has been pronounced to be void by the court. It would have been better if before passing the Bill into an Act the attention of the Parliament was specifically invited to the factum of an earlier pari materia Ordinance having been annulled by the High Court. If an ordinance invalidated by the High Court is still reenacted into an Act after the pronouncement by the High Court, the subsequent Act would be liable to be annulled once again on finding that the High Court was right in taking the view of the illegality of the Ordinance, which it did. However, as we have already stated, this is not the position obtaining in the present case. The impugned Act is not liable to be annulled on the ground of violation of the doctrine of Separation of Powers.