Integrity Score 405
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Chief Justice of India continues....
The writ had been denied in Charanjit Lal’s case on the short ground that he, a shareholder, had not suffered any substantial deprivation of his rights as a shareholder. When the appeal came before the Supreme Court, the old directors of the company whom the Act had deprived of their right to manage the Company, prayed that they be allowed to join the appellants. On this being conceded, the Supreme Court was squarely faced with the question whether the Act was or was not constitutional. The Court unanimously decided to examine the Act and pronounce on its constitutionality or otherwise now that it was being claimed that unwarranted demands were being made on preference share holders and the old directors had been deprived of their right to manage the Company’s business. In a unanimous decision on behalf of the Court, I held that Act unconstitutional as it had taken away all the essential rights of the Company even though the paper title had not been disturbed. This, the Court declared, was deprivation of property rights, in substance if not in paper title and a clear violation of the right to possess property.
Once again the government faced a dilemma. It had been given to understand, it was alleged, that such abridgement of property rights was not deprivation of property. Logically followed, our decision might have hit similar legislation enacted so far. The Government therefore once again proceeded to amend the Constitution, The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution Act became law on 21st April, 1955 and undid the definition of property rights the Court had enunciated. Once again there was a good deal of severe criticism of the Court for daring to interpret the Constitution as it stood. Many of our critics forgot that the function of the Court was to interpret both the Constitution and the statutory law and to declare the latter unconstitutional if it violated the former. The Court had nothing to do with the wisdom or expediency of arty impugned Act.
To be continued............