 INTRODUCTION:

The Constitution of India, the supreme law of the nation, has empowered the Central and the
State Government to enact laws by virtue of various Articles read with Schedule VII. Black’s
Law Dictionary defines repugnancy as inconsistency or contradiction between two or more
parts of a legal instrument. In a system that divides its law-making power between the Centre
and the States, an inconsistency can arise between the laws made by the Centre and those
made by the State. The Doctrine of Repugnancy was introduced in the Constitution to resolve
such situations.

 MEANING OF DOCTRINE OF REPUGNANCY:

Repugnancy can be defined as the contrary or the disconfirmation between two or more parts
of a statute or a contract which are basically a legal instrument. Doctrine of repugnancy is
basically when two pieces of legislation have a conflict between them and when are applied to
the same facts but they produce different outcomes or results. When provisions of 2 laws are
so contrary and disconfirmed that it becomes difficult to do one without opposing the other,
this is a situation where repugnancy arises. Article 254 of the Indian Constitution establishes
successfully the Doctrine of Repugnancy in India.
Article 254 of the Indian Constitution establishes the doctrine of repugnancy in India. Before
getting to this doctrine, it is quintessential to understand the legislative scheme and the Centre-
State relations set out by the Constitution.
Doctrine of Repugnancy deals with the difference of opinions in terms of law which arises
between the Centre and States. Article 254(1) of Indian Constitution states that if any
provision of law or the law which is made by the legislature of the State is repellent to any
provision made by the Parliament, then the law which is made by the Parliament shall make
triumph over the law which is enacted by the State.
Article 254(2) states that any provision of law or the law which is made by the legislature of
the State on the matter which is cited in the concurrent list, is repellent to the provision made
by the Parliament and it has been kept for the approval of President and if it has got the
approval then State law will triumph over the law made by the Parliament. The Parliament any
time before the approval of President can amend or invalidate the repugnant law.
Article 245 empowers the Parliament to make laws for the whole or any part of India and the
State legislature to make laws for the whole or any part of the State. It also states that a law
made by the Parliament shall not be deemed invalid due to its extraterritorial application.

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Further, Article 246 provides the subject-matter of laws that can be made by the Parliament
and Legislature of the States.
 The Parliament has exclusive powers to make laws for all matters given in the Union List or
List I of the Schedule VII of the Indian Constitution.
 The Legislature of the State has powers to make laws for such State for all matters given in
the State List or List II of Schedule VII.
 Both the Parliament and the State Legislature have powers to make laws for all matters listed
in the Concurrent List or List III of the Seventh Schedule.
 The Parliament is empowered to make laws relating to any matter for any part of the
territory of India, not included in a State, notwithstanding if it is enumerated in the State
List.
Repugnancy means a contradiction between two laws which when applied to the same set of
facts produce different results. It is used to describe inconsistency and incompatibility between
the Central laws and State laws when applied in the concurrent field. The situation of
repugnancy arises when two laws are so inconsistent with each other that the application of
any one of them would imply the violation of another.
The doctrine of repugnancy, in accordance to Article 254, states that if any part of State law is
repugnant or conflicting to any part of a Central law which the Parliament is competent to
enact, or to any part of a law of the matter of List III, then the Central law made by the
Parliament shall prevail and the law made by the State legislature shall become void, to the
extent of its repugnancy. While considering this doctrine, whether the central law is passed
before or after the State law is immaterial. Hence, this is a principle to ascertain that when a
state law becomes repugnant to the Central law.

 CONDITIONS OF REPUGNANCY:

There are some conditions which need to be satisfied before any repugnancy could arise are as
follows- there should be clear and direct incompatibility between the Central and the State
Act, incompatibility is definitely clashing, the incompatibility has reached to such a stage that
the two Acts are in a direct clash with each other and it is difficult or almost impossible to
obey one without disobeying the other one.
The Doctrine of Repugnancy is not explicitly mentioned in American as well as Canadian
Constitution. It has been adopted from the American Constitution. The framers of the
constitution of India in order to avoid the dispute between the Centre and the State introduced
this doctrine in the article 254 of the Indian Constitution. The State Legislature and the

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Parliament have equal compatibility to constitutionalize in the concurrent list.
This is the duty of the court to interpret the validation and avoid disputes. If the matter is
different, then no repugnancy of law which is passed by the legislature is required. Then at that
moment of time Article 254(2) would not have any implementation. Under the Article 254 of
the Constitution, when there is a law which is passed by the legislature of the state and which
is conflicting with the law parliament the whole of the law cannot be held invalid, it can be
held invalid only till the dimensions of repugnancy.
To get confirmation about the repugnancy, it is important to check the law made by the
Parliament is a comprehensive code or not. If it is not, then the law made by the state won't be
held void. In order to invalidate a law, which is passed by the state legislature in the court, it is
important to prove that both the laws are made on the same significance and both are
conflicting with each other. The state law which becomes nullified after the repugnancy until
and unless the union law is not revoked, once it gets revoked it becomes effective.
There is no uncertainty that both state as well as the union the total power but some matters
occur many a times where there is a difference of opinion between both the governments. In
this situation, Doctrine of Repugnancy becomes a critical technique to deal with these types of
inconsistencies. As we all know Centre is dominant over the State in India, this doctrine is not
astonishing under Article 254(1) of the Indian Constitution, it mentions that any law which is
conflicting to the law that is passed by the Parliament would be held nullified.
If the state gets approval from the President, the Parliament still has the power of making the
law void by proving, amending and abrogating law in the same subject matter. There is no
importance whether law made by the Parliament has been passed before or after the passing of
law made by the State.
The three essentials that are direct conflict, occupied field and intended occupation, if they are
satisfied, then the repugnancy arises, then the Parliament law shall triumph over the State law.
Doctrine of Repugnancy has a major role in order to maintain the integrity of the country and
to keep away two laws on the same subject matter.
Constitution of India has various doctrines but the Doctrine of Repugnancy is one of the most
consequential. It helps to maintain uniformity in our country and prevents conflicts between
the Centre and State. As we all know, that India is a Quasi federal country and there is a
system of distribution of powers between the Centre and the State, so there are chances that
disagreement may arise between the Centre and the State and then there is this doctrine which
becomes criminal.

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Whenever, any law which is passed by the Parliament conflicting with law passed in the state
legislature, then the parliament law shall prevail. There are many cases in the Article 254(2)
that are considered as an exception to the Article 254(1) where it is mentioned that law passed
by the State legislature can prevail with the help of Presidential assent.
Article 254(2) of the Indian Constitution has a provision added which claims that Parliament
can uphold and amend the same law to make state law incompatible. The law remains
inconsistent until and unless the law passed the parliament isn't repelled once it's law gone by
the legislature of state comes into existence. In this doctrine Legislative object plays a major
rule. Therefore, this doctrine plays a relevant role in the Indian Constitution in deciding the
roles of Centre and State.

 JUDICIAL INTERPRETATION: DOCTRINE OF REPUGNANCY CASE

M.KARUNANIDHI V. UNION OF INDIA

Publications
(AIR 898 SC 1979)

 ABSTRACT -

The present writ petition has been filed to seek necessary guidelines and notification from
court and judiciary system on doctrine of repugnancy; which deals when there is any conflict
between the laws of Centre and State. According to black law dictionary repugnancy is thre
condition when there is conflict between two pieces of legislation which when applied to the
same facts produce different results. Repugnancy arises when the provisions of two laws are
so inconsistent and irreconcilable that it is impossible to do one without disobeying the other.
In Indian law Doctrine of Repugnancy has been stated in Article 254 of the Indian
Constitution, under Part XI dealing with arena of research falling within the jurisdiction of the
relations between the Center and the States, as mentioned in the Constitution. This particular
document deals the landmark case on doctrine of repugnancy in detail. This case study
contrast Article 254 of Indian constitution which claims to stand for, along with the articles
and the exceptions listed.
Article attempts to describe the importance of the Article 254 under the context of Indian
centralism, as well as the highlights the importance of the Article 254 with respect to central
and state domain.
The methodology of research adopted for this paper is mainly the doctrinal method of
research.

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The article is concluded with the judgement of the aforementioned case and is attempting to
critically scrutinize the issue.

 PRIMARY DETAILS OF THE CASE -

 BRIEF FACTS OF THE CASE -

Petitioner of the case, M Karunanidhi, a former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu & appellant in
this case brought a case on the table of the High Court by filing the application before the high
court. On 15 june,1976 chief secretary to government of Tamil Nadu wrote a demi official
Letter to then D.I.G.P, CBI appealing the authority to formulate a comprehensive and in-depth
inspection into couple of issue raised against petitioner and others pleaders who were
purported to have misused their official authority in the case of purchase of wheat from

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Punjab. After the alleged contemplations, Resultantly F.I.R was lodged. After then
investigation took place and after inquiry prosecution was initiated against the petitioner on
the grounds of section of I.P.C and Clauses of Prevention of corruption act.
FIR was lodged on 16 June, 1976 and after four months of F.I.R, then Governor of Tamil
Nadu, Kodaras Kalidas shah conceded the sanction under section 197 of the Tamil Nadu
Public Men (Criminal Misconduct) Act, 1973 herein referred as State Act. The sanction was
for the pursuit of the petitioner under sections 161(1), 468(2) and 471(3) of the IPC and Sec.
5(2) r/w Sec. 5 (1) (d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act (hereinafter referred to as the
Corruption Act, 1988). After the detailed investigation, police put forward a charge sheet
against the petitioner for committing the abovementioned offences and purported that the
petitioner had procured monetary benefit of Rs. 4 to Rs. 5 lakh from Madenlal Gupta for
passing favourable judgement in some firm and the same was registered before special jury.
Then Mr Karunanidhi, petitioner filed an application for discharge in front of special judge,
but he rejected on the grounds of abovementioned FIR. Later, when petitioner appealed to HC
for quashing the FIR but then the high court also rejected the appeal but under the favour
granted a certificate for leave to appeal. While the process in December, 1973 Madras
Legislature passed an Act titled “the Tamil Nadu Public Men (Criminal Misconduct) Act,
1973” later this act was generally vocalized the State Act and got final president assent on
December 30, 1973. Later the act was amended by Act 16 of 1974 and for the same
President’s assent was conferred on April 10, 1974.
After high court rejected the plea, the matter went to the Supreme Court bench through an
appeal by accuse. But before the appeal was made the Tamil Nadu Public Men (Criminal
Misconduct) Act, 1973 was repealed by the Presidential assent in 1977.

 ISSUES INVOLVED IN THE CASE -

The Petitioner -
 Questioned the legal and constitutional validity of the Tamil Nadu Public Men (Criminal
Misconduct) Act, 1973, as amended by the Act 16 of 1974 on the ground that it was
conflicting in nature with the Central Act and Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947 and hence
should be void. The State Act repealed and the question was tabled that whether action could
be taken under the Central Laws i.e. the IPC, the Corruption Act and Criminal Law
Amendment.

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 Made placate that despite the fact that the State Act was repealed it was repugnant to the
Central Laws, i.e. the IPC and the Corruption Act. Resultantly, Under article 254(2) the
provision the Central Act got repealed.
Finally the question before the court was whether there was any question of inconsistency
between the State Act and the Central Act and Whether or not there was a original
contradiction resulted from that inconsistency between the State Act and the Central Acts.

 LEGAL ASPECTS INVOLVED -

November, 1977 but at the time when it was in force, the act was wholly abhorrent to several
provisions of the Code, the Corruption Act and the Criminal Law Amendment Act and by
ethic of Article 254(2) of the Constitution of India, all contradictory provisions of the
abovementioned Central Act were repealed permanently.
Supported the fact that first part of his argument that the State Act was contradictory to the
certain provisions of the The legal facet, here in the case was that despite the fact that the State
Act was repealed on 6 Central Acts as a result of which the After the repealing, numerous
grounds were augmented by lawyer representing the petitioner former was upheld as void.
The another argument was that even after when State Act freezed to exist and when the
Central Acts were applied to the facts of the present case, the petitioner cannot be litigate
under any of the Sections of the Indian Penal Code or the Corruption Act, because being the
Chief Minister of the State at the relevant time petitioner was not at at authority of public
servant as defined in section 21 clause (12) of the Indian Penal Code.
The essence of the argument was that by just because of the authority that the petitioner
entertain as Chief Minister of state, there was no such relationship of master and servant
between petitioner and the Government authority and hence he was acting as a constitutional
functionary and, therefore, could not be described as a public servant as contemplated by
section 21(12) of the Indian Penal Code.

 JUDGEMENT IN BRIEF -

When high court rejected the plea and the case went to apex court then, Supreme Court
ordered and ruled that the State Act was not contradicting to the aforementioned Central Acts
and so resultantly the same can not be repealed and so therefore Central Act which resumed to
operation despite the fact that the decision of the repealing of the State Act generated distinct
and separate offences with different ingredients and different punishments and does not in any
way crashes with the any abovementioned Central Acts. The State Act is preferably acting as a

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complimentary Act to the Central Act. The State Act itself allows the Central Acts to come to
its support after once the inspection is completed and a report is tabled. The State Act provides
that the ‘public man’ will have to be prosecuted under the Central Acts.
The question of inconsistency between the central legislations and State legislation arises in
couple of ways. First, where the central laws are sanctioned with respect to case allotment in
respective arenas but they were somewhere in midst of conflict and were intersecting within
each other and Second mode was, where the two central acts with respect to the case in the
concurrent list and there is a dispute. In both the mentioned condition, the central legislation
will be dominate in nature, in the first by virtue of non-obstacle clause in Article 246 (1) and
in the second by reason of Article 256 of Indian constitution.
The court also cited Tika Ramji v. State of U.P. [AIR 1956 SC 676 : 1956 SCR 393] case,
while handling the question arose of inconsistency between a Central and a State enactment,
this Court also cited legal observations of Nicholas in his Australian Constitution, 2nd Edn. p.
303, where three tests of inconsistency were laid down and which are as follows:
 There may be inconsistency in the actual terms of the competing statutes (R.V. Brisbane
Licensing Court [(1920) 28 CLR 23 (Aus)] )
 Despite the fact of being no direct conflict, a State law may be ineffective because the
Commonwealth law, or the award of the Commonwealth Court, is intended to be a complete
exhaustive code [Clyde Engineering Co. Ltd. v. Cowburn.]
 Even in the absence of intention, a conflict may arise when both State and Commonwealth
seek to exercise their powers over the same subject-matter.
(Victoria v. Commonwealth [(1937) 58 CLR 618 (Aus)] ; Wenn v. Attorney-General [(1948)
77 CLR 84] ). This court also relied on the decisions in the case of Hume v. Palmer as also
the case of Ex Parte McLean referred to above.
The use of the words ‘other public servants’ following a Minister of the Union or of a State
clearly depict that a Minister would also be a public servant as other public servants
contemplated by s. 199(2) of the Code and the Code being a statute harmonious and associated
with the Indian Penal Code can be viewed into for the purpose of identifying the original
meaning and import of the words ‘public servant’ as used in the aforesaid section [286 F]
Dattatraya Narayan Patil v. State of Maharashtra, [1975], Supp. SCR 145; Emperor v. Sibnath
Banerji & Ors., AIR 1945 PC 156; Rao Shiv Bahadur Singh & Anr. v. The State of Vindhya
Pradesh, [1953] SCR 1188.

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In the case the judgment was given by Justice Fazalali Syed Murtaza that the bench is satisfied
that a Chief Minister or a Minister is doubtlessly a public servant as defined in section 21(12)
(a) of the Penal Code and the view taken by the High Court on this point was absolutely
correct in law. As the salary paid to the chief minister is accounted for public work he
perform in his tenure and although the authority get the payment from government but is not
being paid like other constitutional authority like prime minister, speaker etc. so therefore he is
not under the domain of public.
The result is that all the contentions raised by Mr. Venu Gopal, counsel for the appellant fail
and the appeals are dismissed.
The case before the Special Judge will now proceed to its ultimate end according to law.
Finally court dismissed the plea.

 CONCLUSION -

After the in-depth study of this case and Doctrine of repugnancy we can finally conclude that
the repugnancy generally arose when there is distinct and direct conflict between the Central
Act and the State Act and such conflict is purely incompatible.
According to me in this case the apex court has provided a well written eloquent judgment and
made its stance clear and comprehensive and also attempt to provide the rational behind the
stance and judgement. In the case when the law becomes inconsistence with the other then it
can led stumbling stone to both the side and can hamper the work of both the laws in negative
aspect.
In this case, court under article 254 of Indian Constitution make it clear that the inconsistency
provisions in detail and held that if a state law that is made on the concurrent list is
inconsistency with the law made by center, then in normal situation law made by the center
would be dominance and shall prevail but if the state law got the assent of the president, then
state law would prevail in such condition.
Also, the court scrutinized many elements and provided the explicit interpretation of the issue
of a public servant and held that Ministers can also fall under the ambit of public servant office
which was a good appeal of jurisdiction used by judges to serve the justice.

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 TESTS FOR DETERMINING REPUGNANCY:

The principles of repugnancy have been applied under the Australian Constitution and have
been borrowed by analogy for their application in India. Following Australian precedents, the
Court in the case of Deep Chand v. State of Uttar Pradesh observed that repugnancy between two
enactments can be identified with the help of the following three tests:
1. Whether there is a direct conflict between the two conflicting provisions;
2. Whether the Parliament intended to lay down an exhaustive enactment on the subject-
matter and to replace the law made by the State legislature; and
3. Whether the law made by the Parliament and that made by the State legislature occupies
the same field.

 DIRECT CONFLICT -

Direct conflict is said to exist when two laws cannot be effectuated at the same time. A lucid
occurrence of repugnancy is when the existence of one law prohibits the application of another
law with respect to the same conduct. Such were the circumstances in the case Mati Lal Shah v
Chandra Kanta Sarkar before the Calcutta High Court. A conflict arose between Section 20
and Section 34 of the Bengal Agricultural Debtors Act, 1936, and Section 31 of the Presidency
Small Causes Courts Act, 1882 which is an existing Indian law in force. The former required
that the service of a notice shall stay for the execution of certain decrees against the
agricultural debtors while the latter required that the execution shall take place through other
courts, if necessary. The Court held the provisions of the Bengal Act void due to repugnancy.
In another case of Vishwanath v. Harihar Gir (1939), Section 16 read with Section 17 of
the Bihar MoneyLenders Act, 1938 was conflicting with Order 21, Rule 66 of the Code of
Civil Procedure. The Bihar Act provided that the Court should fix an amount of the property,
when it is brought for sale, and not permit its sale below that fixed amount. On the other hand,
the Code provided that the Court shall mention the amount of the property which is mentioned
by the Decree holder or judgment debtor but is not required to vouch for the correct price of
the property. The Court observed that the application of both the provisions at the same time is
impossible as they are contradictory to each other. Hence, in substance, there is repugnancy.
The Court held the provisions of the Bihar Act void and applied those of the Code. In this
case, it was seen that although there is a judicial eagerness to limit the area of repugnancy,
however, when it is coupled with mechanical reconciliation, the result might not always end
up being desirable or beneficial for the society in general. The implementation of the doctrine
remains unpreventable.

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 EXHAUSTIVE CODE -

The test of direct conflict can prove to be narrow for complex scenarios. Thus, a second
principle was evolved for the fuller understanding of the application of the dominant
legislation, which is, if the Central government intentionally drafted a code for its exhaustive
application for regulating the subject-matter, then it would not be harmonious for the State
legislation to function at the same time. This test provides ample scope for the Judiciary to
uphold the intended values, envisaged in the paramount legislation, by the makers of the
legislation and to defeat narrow arguments that could be raised on the basis of the direct
collision test.
In the case of State of Assam v. Horizon Union, the Apex Court undertook the exhaustive code
test. For appointing the Presiding Officer of an Industrial Tribunal, the qualifications required
by the candidate, as per the State law, were 3 years experience as a District Judge or qualified
for appointment as a High Court judge, provided that such appointment could be made only
after consultation with the High Court. The challenge, in the present case, was on a candidate
who was appointed without any consultation from the High Court. The Supreme Court
observed that the Central Act was intended to be an exhaustive code on the subject-matter, i.e.,
the appointment of District Judges as a Presiding Officer, and the appointment was valid.
However, if a person qualified to be appointed as a Judge of the High Court were to be
appointed as the Presiding Officer, the provisions in the State law for consultation with the
High Court were still valid. This shows on what narrow field the Central Government was held
to have laid down an exhaustive code.
In the above case, the test of direct conflict would have failed in determining the conflict.

 OCCUPYING THE SAME FIELD -

This test is in close relation with the exhaustive code test for identifying repugnancy between
two enactments. If the Central government has enacted a law with the intention of occupying
the whole field, then it would not be fit for the State law to legislate in the same field.
In Zaverbhai Amaidas v. the State of Bombay, a convict pleaded that he was convicted by a
Court having no jurisdiction. According to the state law, the offence committed by him, that is,
transporting food grains without permit attracted imprisonment for a term of 7 years. On the
other hand, the Central law prescribed punishment of imprisonment for a term of 3 years for
the offence committed by him. An additional provision in the Central law was that the
punishment could be increased to 7 years if the person was found possessing double the
permitted quantity of food grains. The convict argued that he should have been governed by

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the provisions of the Bombay Act and not the Central Act which would render the decision of
the court a faulty one, and without jurisdiction as the Magistrate who punished him could
sentence him for the imprisonment of only up to 3 years. The occupation of the field of both
the laws was observed as seen whether they occupy the same field or not. The Supreme Court
held that both the laws occupied the same field and cannot be split up. Hence, the State laws
were held to be void and the Central law prevailed as per the doctrine of repugnancy.

 CONCLUSION:

The effect of the application of this doctrine will make the State law void to the extent of
repugnancy. As long as the Central law occupies the field, the State law is eclipsed. If, in case,
the Central law is repealed, then the State law shall revive. The doctrine of severability also
comes into application since if a State law is repugnant for a matter in the concurrent list, then
only the repugnant part will be held void and the rest shall function normally, thereby, giving
rise to severability. Article 254 proves that the Indian Constitution is both unitary and federal.
This doctrine is quintessential for the Centre-State relations in the country.

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