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276 GST LAW TIMES [ Vol. 35
affected and the legislation may act somewhat harshly. However, this can-
not be a ground for annulling the statutory provision.
9. The courts always recognize a greater degree of latitude while examin-
ing the laws concerning economic matters. Even otherwise the wisdom of
the Parliament for framing a law would not be subject matter of judicial re-
view. The Constitution of India while undoubtedly authorizes the constitu-
tional courts to test the validity of a legislation including one framed by the
Union or the State legislature, the courts have however recognized that the
law framed by the Parliament or State legislature can be declared unconsti-
tutional only on the grounds that the same is opposed to the fundamental
rights contained in part III of the Constitution or is opposed to any other
provision in the Constitution. Particularly when it comes to the laws per-
taining to the economic matters, the courts recognize greater degree of lati-
tude in the legislature. These principles have been highlighted in the consti-
tutional bench judgment of the Supreme Court in case of R.K. Garg (supra)
in which it was observed as under :
“7. Now while considering the constitutional validity of a statute
said to be violative of Article 14, it is necessary to bear in mind certain
well established principles which have been evolved by the courts as
rules of guidance in discharge of its constitutional function of judicial
review. The first rule is that there is always a presumption in favour
of the constitutionality of a statute and the burden is upon him who
attacks it to show that there has been a clear transgression of the con-
stitutional principles. This rule is based on the assumption, judicially
recognised and accepted, that the legislature understands and cor-
rectly appreciates the needs of its own people, its laws are directed to
problems made manifest by experience and its discrimination are
based on adequate grounds. The presumption of constitutionality is
indeed so strong that in order to sustain it, the court may take into
consideration matters of common knowledge, matters of common re-
port, the history of the times and may assume every state of facts
which can be conceived existing at the time of legislation.
8. Another rule of equal importance is that laws relating to econom-
ic activities should be viewed with greater latitude than laws touch-
ing civil rights such as freedom of speech, religion etc. …. … The
court must always remember that “legislation is directed to practical
problems, that the economic mechanism is highly sensitive and com-
plex, that many problems are singular and contingent, that laws are
not abstract propositions and do not relate to abstract units and are
not to be measured by abstract symmetry” that exact wisdom and
nice adoption of remedy are not always possible and that “judgment
is largely a prophecy based on meagre and uninterpreted experi-
ence”. Every legislation particularly in economic matters is essentially
empiric and it is based on experimentation or what one may call trial
and error method and therefore it cannot provide for all possible sit-
uations or anticipate all possible abuses. There, may be crudities and
inequities in complicated experimental economic legislation but on
that account alone it cannot be struck down as invalid. The courts
cannot, as pointed out by the United States Supreme Court in Secre-
tary of Agriculture v. Central Roig Refining Company be converted into
tribunals for relief from such crudities and inequities. There may even
be possibilities of abuse, but that too cannot of itself be a ground for
invalidating the legislation, because it is not possible for any legisla-
ture to anticipate as if by some divine prescience, distortions and
abuses of its legislation which may be made by those subject to its
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