State of West Bengal v. Anwar Ali Sarkar

Facts

The West Bengal Special Courts Act, 1950 empowered the State Government to direct that any 'cases' or 'classes of cases' or 'offences' be tried by special courts following a procedure that abridged ordinary safeguards. The accused were directed to be tried by a special court and challenged the provision as discriminatory.

Issues

• Whether Section 5(1) of the Act, allowing the executive to pick cases for trial by a less favourable special procedure, violated the equal protection guarantee of Article 14.
• What test determines whether a classification offends Article 14.

Arguments

The State argued the Act enabled speedier trial of certain offences, a legitimate object, and that classification of cases was permissible. The respondents argued the Act laid down no principle for selecting cases, leaving an arbitrary, unguided discretion to single out individuals for harsher treatment.

Held

The majority struck down Section 5(1). Article 14 forbids class legislation but permits reasonable classification founded on an intelligible differentia having a rational nexus to the object of the law. The Act gave the executive naked, unguided power to subject selected cases to a discriminatory procedure with no discernible basis, and 'speedier trial' was too vague an object to furnish a rational nexus. Mukherjea J. held the mere existence of two procedures, one less advantageous, attracted Article 14 irrespective of whether the trial was otherwise fair.

Ratio decidendi

Equal protection permits classification only if (i) it rests on an intelligible differentia distinguishing those grouped from those left out, and (ii) the differentia bears a rational nexus to the statute's object; a law vesting unguided discretion to discriminate is void.

Significance

The foundational Indian authority establishing the twin-test of reasonable classification under Article 14. Bose J.'s separate opinion famously asked whether a law would 'offend the conscience' of a democratic republic. The case anchors the 'old' classification doctrine that continues to govern classificatory rules.

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