K T THOMAS Vs. UNION OF INDIA UOI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE writ petitions challenge the vires of Section 1 (5) of the Plantations Labour Act, 1951, and the notification issued thereunder. The Plantations Labour Act is an Act passed by Parliament to provide for the welfare of labour, and to regulate the conditions of work, in plantations. Sub-sections (4) and (5) of Section 1 are as follows:

(2.) SUB-SECTION (5) of Section 1 has been attacked as amounting to excessive delegation of the legislative function. We are unable to agree. The policy and principles of legislation having been laid down, the State Government have been vested with a power to apply the provisions of the Section, if it so wishes, even to plantations lesser in extent than the area mentioned in Sub-section (4) (b) of the Section, subject to the provisions made in the proviso, namely, that the notification can operate only in respect of plantations which were such, immediately before the commencement of this Act. The idea or the object underlying this provision appears to us to be plain enough, namely, after the passing of the Act, it might well be that persons had resorted to fragmentation of the plantations by way of partition, transfer, or otherwise, solely with a view to escape the provisions of this Act and to defeat the object and the purposes of the Act. The State Government's power of notification conferred by Sub-section (5) seems to work as a check against such abuses. It may also well be, that in a small State like Kerala, with a rapidly expanding population, the Legislature felt it necessary to clothe the State Government with this power. Whatever it is, we think, the power cannot be regarded as amounting to excessive delegation. We rather think that the provision is one of conditional legislation and perfectly valid as such. The policy and principles of legislation having been laid down by the Legislature with respect to plantations of 10-117 hectares and more in extent, a discretion is left in the hands of the State Government to extend the provisions of the Act to such plantations. Even viewed as delegated legislation, we are of the opinion that the sum and the substance of the law having been chalked out by the Legislature, the leaving of such discretion to a high authority as the Government is not objectionable.

(3.) COUNSEL for the petitioners argued that the power conferred by Section 1 (5) of the Act and the notification actually issued under the provisions of the said Section, namely, Ext. P1, would amount to unfair discrimination. It was urged that the Section and the notification would operate alike on a person who had derived a smaller extent than 10. 117 hectares, since the date of the commencement of the Act by a bona fide partition or transfer, or by inheritance, and also on a person who had come by the requisite extent by devices to defeat the provisions of the Act. We are unable to see a case of discrimination on the basis of such considerations; and in any event, on the facts of these cases placed before us, we are wholly unable to sustain any case of discrimination. We dismiss these writ petitions, in the circumstances, without costs.