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"The Preamble shows that it has been passed in the interest of the general public for the control of the production, supply and distribution of, and trade and commerce in, certain commodities, Section 3 of the Act gives power to the Central Government to pass orders under the Act if it is necessary or expedient so to do for maintaining or increasing supplies of any essential commodity or for securing their equitable distribution and availability at fair prices."

Other provisions in that Act also reveal the same thing. Consequently, the Essential Commodities Act is a piece of legislation contemplated by Article 302 of the Constitution and fully protected by it.

"It is obvious that whatever may be the content of the said freedom, it is not intended to be an absolute freedom; absolute freedom in matters of trade, commerce and intercourse would lead to economic confusion, if not chaos and anarchy and so the freedom guaranteed by Article 301 is made subject to the exceptions provided by the other Articles in Part XIII."

Ours is not a clase of an independent legislation. It is a case where an Order has been framed under an existing Act, i.e. the Essential Commodities Act. The Order merely carries out the purposes of that Act. (See AIR 1959 SC 626) (Supra). In other words, it is in the nature of delegated legislation. There was no argument before us and indeed none was possible that there has been a delegation of legislative functions in the instant case. The position of all the Orders framed under Section 3 of the Essential Commodities Act is to make those Orders a part of the Act itself. It would be a complete misconception to treat the impugned Order as independant of the Essential Commodities Act. Inasmuch as the Essential Commodities Act has been passed under Article 302 of the Constitution and fulfills all the requirements of that provision, it was not necessary that the Parliament should have passed another Act in order to give protection to the impugned Order. The position of the impugned Order and such other Orders is analogous to that of the rules or regulations framed under the statute which are treated to be a part of the statute itself. (See Khetsidas Girdhari Lal v. Pratapmull Rameshwar, AIR 1946 Cal 197 and Saligram Singh v. Emperor, AIR 1945 Pat 69. It is trite that if and when the Essential Commodities Act is repealed, the impugned Order would also disappear and cannot be continued unless there is another Act passed making its continuance possible. Under these circumstances, we have no hesitation in rejecting the submission made by Mr. Saran that the Parliament has not passed any law under Article 302 of the Constitution which could give protection to Clause 3 of the Order.

In Thanmal Surana v. Union of India, AIR 19591 Raj 206 the validity of Sections 3 and 5 of the Essential Commodities Act and the provisions of the Gram (Rajasthan) Price Control Order, 1958 was challenged on the ground of Article 19(r)(f) and (g) of the Constitution as also on the ground of delegation of essential legislative functions but without success. It was not considered worthwhile to raise any question regarding the invalidity of the impugned provisions on the ground of Articles 301 to 304 of the Constitution and even though a large number of similar Orders have been passed under Section 3 of the Essential Commodities Act, we are not aware of a single case where an attack was launched on its validity on the basis of Articles 301 to 304 of the Constitution. Even in the case of Harishanker Bagla v. M.P. State, AIR 1954 SC 465 where the validity of the Cotton Textitle (Control of Movement) Order, 1948 was challenged, the attack was confined to the alleged infringement of Article 19(1) of the Constitution.

We have no hesitation in saying that the Order having been framed under Section 3 of the Essential Commodities Act, any argument regarding the non-existence of restriction imposed under Article 302 of the Constitution is misconceived. It is difficult to understand how the provisions of Article 304 of the Constitution can be attracted to this case.

That provision applies to State and not to Central legislation which is the case before us. Besides, it is not an exception to Article 302 of the Constitution. Mr. Saran had in the end to concede that that provision has no applicability to the facts before us. We have already said above that Mr. Saran withdrew the argument with regard to discrimination between one State and another either on the ground of Article 14 or Article 303 of the Constitution. We may also add that Clause 3 of the impugned Order regulates the, movement of paddy within the State of U.P. and on facts also we do not see that there is any discrimination between one State and another. It is true, that the first part of Article 303 is in terms an exception or a proviso to Article 302 as is indicated by the non-obstante Clause (1). Clause (2) of Article 303 is, however, an exception to Clause (1) and empowers the Parliament to make a law giving or authorising to give any preference, or making any discrimination subject to the condition that it is declared by law made by the Parliament that it is necessary so to do for the purpose of dealing with a situation arising from the scarcity of the goods in any part of the territory of India. Therefore, even if Article 303 applied to the facts of the present case, Clause 3 of the impugned Order would be protected by Clause (2) of Article 303 inasmuch as the impugned Order has been framed under Section 3 of the Essential Commodities Act. That Act was passed because the Parliament was dealing with the situation arising from scarcity of goods in some parts of this country and was thus meeting an emergency created by the scarcity of goods. For these reasons, in our judgment, Clause 3 of the impugned Order is not hit by Article 303 of the Constitution also.