Doctrine of Colourable Legislation

 The doctrine of colourable legislation checks if the legislature has transgressed its power mentioned in the constitution.

The expression “Colourable Legislation” means “what can’t be done directly, can’t be done indirectly as well”.

In this article, we will discuss what is the doctrine of colourable legislation and the famous Supreme Court Judgements in which this doctrine is used to check the validity of the law.

Concept

Concept of Doctrine of Colourable Legislation

  • Separation of powers entails the division or sharing of power. The Constitution states that each of these organs should exercise diverse powers in order to prevent the misuse of authority by any of the government's organs.
  • As a result, a system of checks and balances emerges. With respect to their respective subjects, the Constitution has split powers between the federal government and the states.
  • However, the legislative body occasionally passes laws that are outside of its purview. This signifies it has overstepped its bounds and done something indirectly that could not have been done directly.
  • This is known as a colourable exercise of legislative power or establishing laws indirectly while doing so directly is illegal. As a result, the theory of colourable legislation was created to prevent legislative authorities from abusing their powers.
  • For instance, the constitution provides reservation to only social and educationally backward communities.
  • So any attempt to declare the socially forward communities as backward communities and extend the reservation becomes coloured legislation.

Supreme Court Judgements in which doctrine of colorable legislation is used

K.C. Gajapati Narayan Deo v. State of Orissa

  • In this case, the constitutional validity of the Orissa Agricultural Income Tax (Amendment) Act,1950 was challenged as colorable legislation.
  • The reason behind this was its real objective was to reduce the Net income of intermediaries to keep the compensation paid to a minimum.
  • The court felt that it is not a colorable piece of legislation as agriculture income is a state subject and it had the authority to enact the law and reducing the compensation is another part of it.

M.R. Balaji v. The state of Mysore 1962

  • In this case, the Mysore government has passed a law stating all communities except the Brahmin community are socially and educationally backward communities.
  • It left only 32 % of seats for the merit pool and reserved nearly 62% in state medical and engineering colleges.
  • The court held that it violated Article 15(4) and therefore is invalid.
Conclusion

Conclusion

  • Colourable legislation means that the legislative power has been encroached upon. When something is not allowed to be done directly, the idea of colourable law firmly bans doing it indirectly.
  • It determines whether the legislature has enacted a statute within its authorised authority. So, if there is a limitation on the ability to enact laws, the legislature must adhere to it, or it will be considered excess vires of legislative power.


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