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Before however taking up the other two points raised by counsel for the appellants which were pressed before us in this Court it may be necessary to set out the approach which a Court has to make and the principles by which it has to be guided in such matters. Courts Interpret the constitutional provisions against the social setting of the country so as to show a complete consciousness and deep awareness of the growing requirements of the society, the increasing needs of the nation the burning problems of the, day and the complex issues facing the people which the legislature in its wisdom, through beneficial legislation, seeks to solve. The judicial approach should be dynamic rather than static, pragmatic and not pedantic and elastic rather than rigid. It must take into consideration the changing trends of economic thought, the temper of the times and the living aspirations and feelings of the people. This Court while acting as a sentinel on the quivive to protect fundamental rights guaranteed to the citizens of the country must try to strike a just balance between the fundamental rights and the larger and broader interests of society, so that when such right clashes with the larger interest of the country it must yield to the latter. Emphasising the role of Courts in such matters this Court in the case of Jyoti Prashad v. The Administrator for the Union Territory of Delhi(2) observed as follows :-

" where the legislature fulfils its purpose and enacts laws, which in its wisdom, is considered necessary for the solution of what after all is a very human problem the tests of "reasonableness" have to be viewed in the context of the issues which faced the legislature. In the construction of such laws and particularly in judging of their validity the Courts have necessarily to approach it from the point of view of furthering the social interest which it is the purpose of the legislation to promote, for the Courts are not, in these matters. functioning as it were in vacuo, but as parts of a society which is trying, by enacted law, to solve its problems and achieve social concord and peaceful adjustment and thus furthering the moral and material progress of the community as a whole."

(2) [1964] 4 S.C.R. 1002 at 1013.

(3) [1973] 1 S.C.C. 20 at 27.

done to the people at large. It is obvious that, however important the right of it citizen or an individual may be, it has to yield to the larger interests of the country or the community. In the case of Jyoti Pershad v. The Administrator for the Union Territory of Delhi (supra) this Court observed as follows :

"Where the legislature fulfils its purpose and enacts laws, which in its wisdom, is considered necessary for the solution of what after all is a very human problem and tests of ,reasonableness' have to be, viewed in the context of the issues which faced the legislature. In the construction of such laws and particularly in judging of their validity the Courts have necessarily to approach it from the point of view of furthering the social interest which it is the purpose of the legislation to promote, for the Courts are not, in these matters, functioning as it were in vacuo, but as parts of a society which is trying, by enacted law, to solve its problems and achieve social concord and peaceful adjustment and thus furthering the moral and material progress of the community as a whole".

"The harmful consequences or indebtedness are economic and effect efficient farming, social in that the 'relations between the loan given and loan receivers take on the form of relations of hatred,, poisoning the social life."

Dr. C. B. Memoria in his book 'Agricultural Problems of India' has stressed that rural indebtedness has long been one of the most pressing problems of India and observed as follows :

5 54 "Rural people have been under heavy indebtedness of the average money-lenders and Sahukars. The burden of this debt has been passed on from generation to generation inas-