NATIONAL LAW INSTITUTE UNIVERSITY

CONSTITUION LAW PROJECT-III SYNOPSIS

Submitted to: Submitted by:

Miss Kuldeep Kaur Ashutosh Sharma
Visiting Faculty 2017BALLB45
N.L.I.U Bhopal Vth Trimester
Title
The title of my project is Legislative Conflicts in India.

Abstract
India as a country is known to have a federal type of government which is quite
different from its U.S counterpart. The Constitution of India provides a dual
polity with a clear division of power between the Centre and the States, mainly
in three spheres, Legislative, Executive and Judiciary. With such an allotment
and division of power, it is all but inevitable that conflicts will arise between
the two units during the exercise of such power, wherein the constitutional
mechanisms step in and resolve such conflicts through the judiciary. This
project will focus on Legislative Conflicts, how it arises during the course and
its different types. It will also showcase the various constitutional mechanisms
and tests and principles developed for resolution through various case laws
and also cover the historical aspect of the development of the Constitution and
how they led to legislative conflicts. This project will thus highlight the conflicts
relating to law making power between the Centre and State and how Centre
and State relations along with the Judiciary and other Constitutional
developments have helped shape the distribution of such power and the
process of resolution. The data present in this project is found in various
historical cases and documents that have been elaborated.

Introduction
The process of conversion of the Indian government from a unitary to a federal
type began from the British Colonial Period Montague-Chelmsford Reforms,
these have later on gone to form the structure of the federal government we
find in India today. Our constitutional government is a decentralised one all
developed with the aim to ensure that no despotism like situation arises as the
one seen during the Company’s rule. To ensure such a decentralised
government functions without any conflicts the Constitution enshrines various
Articles which specifies each unit’s power and provides mechanisms for
resolution if conflicts do arise. The Legislative powers in India are present with
both the Centre and State Legislatures as specified through the Lists provided
in the Constitution with the residuary powers being present with the Centre.
List I is the Central list, List II the State List and List III being the Concurrent
each containing subject matter or entries on which the respective unit can
make laws upon, there can be no encroachment on the other list in normal
cases and the residuary powers are said to be the entries not present in these
three lists. Although the law making powers are clearly specified there arises
from time to time various types of conflicts which are either resolved through
the mechanisms enshrined in Articles 245 to 255 of Part XI of the Constitution
or the various developed by the Judiciary which we will elaborate on later or
inter state councils. The Judiciary through its various decisions have developed
the Centre-State relations with respect to legislative powers to what it is today
by developing various doctrines to determine if the legislation in question is
constitutional or not. There mainly exist three types of legislative conflicts that
exist in India and are provided for by the Constitution. First being laws which
are from a subject matter not from the respective list of each unit, second is
the case in which a State law contradicts the Union law on the same subject
matter or lastly the case in which there exists both a centre and state law on a
subject mater from the concurrent list. To further smoothen this law making
process and reduce conflicts the Constitution also provides for provisions
where Centre can assume control over State laws in the case of State
Emergency or agreement between states as well as national interest. From the
above introduction we can observe that the framers of the Constitution have
given the Centre a stronger position through its various provisions of the
Constitution to legally encroach upon the State list and assume legislative
power in certain cases establishing a strong Centre which is more favourable in
the state of a national emergency or war like situation. All this will be
elaborated upon further on in the project. Thus the project aims to show how
the powers are distributed among the various units of the country and how
such legislative conflicts arise. It will also trace its history and developments
through various judicial cases and constitutional developments along with the
various constitutional mechanisms present to resolve such conflicts. The law
making power of a country is one of its most essential aspects thus studying
such a topic is quite interesting and essential to fully understand the Indian
Constitution.
Problem Analysis/Literature Review
This project is on the topic of the Legislative Conflicts in India; its history,
development, status, its various changes and interpretations as well as the
provisions regarding the same. The literature referred to arrive at the project is
given below: -
 Constitution of India,1950.
 Constitutional Assembly Debates.
 Various Cases elaborated ahead in the Project.
 V.D. SEBASTIAN, INDIAN FEDERALISM THE LEGISLATIVE CONFLICTS
 V.N. SHUKLA, CONSTITUTION OF INDIA 714, M.P. Singh (11th ed. EBC
Publishing (P) Ltd, 2008)
 H.M. SEERVAI, CONSTUTITIONAL LAW OF INDIA 287, (4th ed. UNIVERSAL
Law Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd. 2008)
 D.D. BASU, COMPARATIVE FEDERALISM 206, Prof. B.M. Gandhi (2nd ed.
Wadhwa & Company Law Publisher, 2008)
 M.P. JAIN, INDIAN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, 1 ,783, Samaraditya Pal & J.
Ruma Pal (Lexis Nexis Butterworths Wadhwa Nagpur., 6th ed.2010)
 P.M. BAKSHI, THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA, 252 (Universal Law
Publishing Co. New Delhi, 11th ed. 2011)
 Introduction to the Constitution of India, Durga Das Basu.
 Legal Services India’s article on Legislative Conflicts in India.

Objectives
The aims of this project on the Legislative Conflicts in India are as follows: -

i. To elaborate on the topic of distribution of powers between Centre and

State and Centre-State relations?
ii. To discuss and elaborate upon legislative conflicts.
iii. To showcase the development of this topic through historical documents,
judicial acts and constitutional developments.
iv. To discuss the various methods of conflict resolution.
v. To showcase other aspects of distribution of legislative powers.
Hypotheses
This project will thus according to me provide a clear background of the
legislative conflicts in India, we will be able to determine what these are and
what its different types are, we will be also be able to trace the developments
of this topic through the constitutional as well as judicial developments since
the colonial period, we will also be able to trace the different conflict resolution
mechanisms as well as other provisions regarding distribution of powers
between Centre and States embodied in the constitution by its makers,
furthermore we will have clarity regarding the Centre-State relation existing
with respect to legislative powers in India and their respective status. Also we
will be able to determine what were the different views presented by various
Constitutional thinkers and the Judiciary till now regarding these conflicts and
the doctrines developed for the same through elaborating on the various cases
and debates regarding the same.

Limitations
Although there is a huge amount of data present regarding the topic of this
project there are still some limitations relating to the same: -
i. It is still unclear what the strait jacket rule of resolving such conflicts is.
This will result in lesser amounts of conflicts arising regarding these
powers.
ii. The present views regarding this topic by the judiciary, legislature etc. are
not known.
iii. The contents of the data can be interpreted differently by different
individuals, there is no uniform interpretation.
iv. Many a times the Centre and State misuse various Constitutional
provisions present to achieve supremacy or to achieve vendetta due to
the differences between different political parties and their ideals.

Methodology and Methods

There is a huge amount of primary and secondary data present regarding this
topic. The data elaborated upon is obtained through various sources. The data
present has been researched upon on the Internet, various books on the topic
of Constitution and Legislative Conflicts in India, various judgements concerning
the topic and lastly the debates of the Judiciary as well as various constitutional
thinkers which are present in the public domain. The data present is accurate
and without any issues as most part of it are first hand recordings of the
proceedings conducted regarding the topic but the interpretation of the terms
present within can be different according to different individuals. Lastly the
various provisions used are present within the Constitution thus the data used
in this project is authentic and thus provides a true and clear picture regarding
the topic and its history as well as background. So, in conclusion the data used
in this project is primary and secondary data obtained through research of
various sources which was elaborated upon to achieve the purpose of this
project, no data was collected as it is not relevant in this type of project.

Research Matrix
Research through various sources like internet, books and research papers,
judgements of Indian courts, interpretation of various Constitution provisions
etc. Full list is present in the References and Review of Literature section.

Data Collection Instruments

Data is collected and compiled through manual research to achieve the purpose
of this project.

References
 Oxford Dictionary & Thesaurus, 9the Impression, 2007. 


 The Constitution of India, Bare Act. 


 www.manupatra.com

 www.google.com

 www.indiankanoon.org

 Items mentioned in Literature Review.