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[On the 9th December, 1949, the appellant who was the secretary of the People’s Publishing House
Ltd., Bombay was arrested and a prosecution was started against him under Section 18(1) of the Indian
Press (Emergency Powers) Act, 1931 in the Court of the Chief Presidency Magistrate at Bombay for
publishing a pamphlet in Urdu entitled “Railway Mazdoorun Ke Khilaf Nai Sazish.” The prosecution
case was that the pamphlet was a news-sheet within the meaning of Section 2(6) of the Act and that
since it had been published without the authority required by section 15(1) of the Act, the appellant had
committed an offence punishable under Section 18(1) of the Act. While the prosecution was pending,
the Constitution of India came into force on the 26 January, 1950, and thereafter the appellant raised
the contention that sections 2(6), 15 and 18 of the Act were void, being inconsistent with Article
19(1)(a) of the Constitution and therefore the case against him could not proceed. Having raised this
contention, the appellant filed a petition in the High Court at Bombay under Article 228 of the
Constitution asking the High Court to send for the record of the case and declare that Sections 15 and
18 of the Indian Press (Emergency Powers) Act read with section 2(6) and (10) thereof were void and
inoperative and the petitioner should be ordered to be acquitted. The High Court refused this
application and held that the proceedings instituted against the appellant before the commencement of
the Constitution could not be affected by the provisions of the Constitution that came into force on the
26 January, 1950. The Court further held that Article 13(1) had virtually the effect of repealing such
provisions of existing laws as were inconsistent with any of the fundamental rights and that
consequently under Section 6 of the General Clauses Act, which is made applicable for the
interpretation of the Constitution by Article 367, pending proceedings were not affected. Dissatisfied
with this decision, the appellant referred the present appeal to the Supreme Court].
DAS, J. – 10. Two questions were raised before the three-judge Bench of Bombay High
Court, namely –
(1) Whether Sections 15(1) and 18(1) read with the definitions contained in
Sections 2(6) and 2(10) of the Indian Press (Emergency Powers) Act, 1931, were
inconsistent with Article 19(1)(a) read with clause (2) of that article? and
(2) Assuming that they were inconsistent, whether the proceedings commenced
under Section 18(1) of that Act before the commencement of the Constitution could
nevertheless be proceeded with?
- The High Court considered it unnecessary to deal with or decide the first question and
disposed of the application only on the second question. The High Court took the view that
the word “void” was used in Article 13(1) in the sense of “repealed” and that consequently it
attracted Section 6 of the General Clauses Act, which Act by Article 367 was made applicable
for the interpretation of the Constitution. The High Court, therefore, reached the conclusion
that proceedings under the Indian Press (Emergency Powers) Act, 1931, which were pending
at the date of the commencement of the Constitution were not affected, even if the Act were
inconsistent with the fundamental rights conferred by Article 19(1)(a) and as such became
void under Article 13(1) of the Constitution after January 26, 1950. The High Court
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accordingly answered the second question in the affirmative and dismissed the petitioner’s
application. The petitioner has now come up on appeal before us on the strength of a
certificate granted by the High Court under Article 132(1) of the Constitution. - An argument founded on what is claimed to be the spirit of the Constitution is always
attractive, for it has a powerful appeal to sentiment and emotion; but a court of law has to
gather the spirit of the Constitution from the language of the Constitution. What one may
believe or think to be the spirit of the Constitution cannot prevail if the language of the
Constitution does not support that view. Article 372(2) gives power to the President to adapt
and modify existing laws by way of repeal or amendment. There is nothing to prevent the
President, in exercise of the powers conferred on him by that article, from repealing, say the
whole or any part of the Indian Press (Emergency Powers) Act, 1931. If the President does so,
then such repeal will at once attract Section 6 of the General Clauses Act. In such a situation
all prosecutions under the Indian Press (Emergency Powers) Act, 1931, which were pending
at the date of its repeal by the President would be saved and must be proceeded with
notwithstanding the repeal of that Act unless an express provision was otherwise made in the
repealing Act. It is therefore clear that the idea of the preservation of past inchoate rights or
liabilities and pending proceedings to enforce the same is not foreign or abhorrent to the
Constitution of India. We are, therefore, unable to accept the contention about the spirit of the
Constitution as invoked by the learned counsel in aid of his plea that pending proceedings
under a law which has become void cannot be proceeded with. Further, if it is against the
spirit of the Constitution to continue the pending prosecutions under such a void law, surely it
should be equally repugnant to that spirit that men who have already been convicted under
such repressive law before the Constitution of India came into force should continue to rot in
jail. It is, therefore, quite clear that the court should construe the language of Article 13(1)
according to the established rules of interpretation and arrive at its true meaning uninfluenced
by any assumed spirit of the Constitution. - It will be noticed that all that this clause [(Art. 13(1)] declares is that all existing laws,
insofar as they are inconsistent with the provisions of Part III shall, to the extent of such
inconsistency, be void. Every statute is prima facie prospective unless it is expressly or by
necessary implications made to have retrospective operation. There is no reason why this rule
of interpretation should not be applied for the purpose of interpreting our Constitution. We
find nothing in the language of Article 13(1) which may be read as indicating an intention to
give it retrospective operation. On the contrary, the language clearly points the other way.
The provisions of Part III guarantee what are called fundamental rights. Indeed, the heading
of Part III is “Fundamental Rights”. These rights are given, for the first time, by and under
our Constitution. Before the Constitution came into force there was no such thing as
fundamental right. What Article 13(1) provides is that all existing laws which clash with the
exercise of the fundamental rights (which are for the first time created by the Constitution)
shall to that extent be void. As the fundamental rights became operative only on and from the
date of the Constitution the question of the inconsistency of the existing laws with those
rights must necessarily arise on and from the date those rights came into being. It must
follow, therefore, that Article 13(1) can have no retrospective effect but is wholly prospective
in its operation. After this first point is noted, it should further be seen that Article 13(1) does
not in terms make the existing laws which are inconsistent with the fundamental rights void
ab initio or for all purposes. On the contrary, it provides that all existing laws, insofar as they
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are inconsistent with the fundamental rights, shall be void to the extent of their inconsistency.
They are not void for all purposes but they are void only to the extent they come into conflict
with the fundamental rights. In other words, on and after the commencement of the
Constitution no existing law will be permitted to stand in the way of the exercise of any of the
fundamental rights. Therefore, the voidness of the existing law is limited to the future
exercise of the fundamental rights. Article 13(1) cannot be read as obliterating the entire
operation of the inconsistent laws, or to wipe them out altogether from the statute book, for to
do so will be to give them retrospective effect which, we have said, they do not possess. Such
laws exist for all past transactions and for enforcing all rights and liabilities accrued before
the date of the Constitution. Learned counsel for the appellant has drawn our attention to
Articles 249(3), 250, 357, 358 and 369 where express provision has been made for saving
things done under the laws which expired. It will be noticed that each of those articles was
concerned with expiry of temporary statutes. It is well known that on the expiry of a
temporary statute no further proceedings can be taken under it, unless the statute itself saved
pending proceedings. If, therefore, an offence had been committed under a temporary statute
and the proceedings were initiated but the offender had not been prosecuted and punished
before the expiry of the statute, then, in the absence of any saving clause, the pending
prosecution could not be proceeded with after the expiry of the statute by efflux of time. It
was on this principle that express provision was made in the several articles noted above for
saving things done or omitted to be done under the expiring laws referred to therein. As
explained above, Article 13(1) is entirely prospective in its operation and as it was not
intended to have any retrospective effect there was no necessity at all for inserting in that
article any such saving clause. The effect of Article 13(1) is quite different from the effect of
the expiry of a temporary statute or the repeal of a statute by a subsequent statute. As already
explained, Article 13(1) only has the effect of nullifying or rendering all inconsistent existing
laws ineffectual or nugatory and devoid of any legal force or binding effect only with respect
to the exercise of fundamental rights on and after the date of the commencement of the
Constitution. It has no retrospective effect and if, therefore, an act was done before the
commencement of the Constitution in contravention of the provisions of any law which, after
the Constitution, becomes void with respect to the exercise of any of the fundamental rights,
the inconsistent law is not wiped out so far as the past act is concerned, for, to say that it is,
will be to give the law retrospective effect. There is no fundamental right that a person shall
not be prosecuted and punished for an offence committed before the Constitution came into
force. So far as the past acts are concerned the law exists, notwithstanding that it does not
exist with respect to the future exercise of fundamental rights. We, therefore, agree with the
conclusion arrived at by the High Court on the second question, although on different
grounds. In our opinion, therefore, this appeal fails and is dismissed.
