SC Hears Appeals Against Gujarat HC Judgment Striking Down 97th Amendment

BACKGROUND

• The Central Government passed the 97th Constitutional Amendment in 2011, relating to encouraging the economic activities of cooperatives.
• The said Amendment was challenged before the Gujarat High Court through a PIL on the ground that it was ultra vires to the constitution.
• The Gujarat High Court Bench passed its judgement in 2013 declaring that the Amendment was unconstitutional.

CASE BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT

• The Union of India filed an appeal before the Supreme Court challenging the judgement of the Gujarat High Court.
• The question before the Court was whether ratification by the states needed for a Constitutional Amendment relating to cooperative societies.
• Another issue was whether the 97th Constitutional Amendment was against the provisions laid down under Article 368(2) of the Constitution.

SUBMISSIONS BY THE PETITIONER

• Attorney General K K Venugopal, on behalf of the petitioner, stated that the impugned Amendment was brought to bring uniformity in the management of cooperative societies and it does not take away the power of the states to enact laws.
• The AG mentioned that Entry 44 of the Union List deals with multi-state cooperative societies and presented judgements to support his stand.
• Senior Advocate Prakash Jani, appearing for Gujarat based cooperative societies, supported the view taken by the Centre and mentioned that the Centre never moved the subject of cooperative societies from the State List to the Union List and states are still free to make any law with regards to the cooperative societies.

SUBMISSIONS BY THE RESPONDENT

• Advocate Masoom K Shah appeared for the respondent and submitted that the 97th Constitutional Amendment violates the federalism structure as it was not ratified by the states.
• He also stated through this Amendment, the Parliament has curtailed the law-making powers of the states.
• He stated that List-II (State List) not only has cooperative societies as its subject but also other subjects like Police and if this Amendment is allowed, the Centre will be able to interfere with those subjects also.

OBSERVATION

• The Bench comprising of Justice RF Nariman, Justice KM Joseph, and Justice BR Gavai observed that if the Centre wants to achieve uniformity, it can achieve that only through Article 252 of the Constitution.
• The hearing was inconclusive and the Court gave a further date for the hearing.

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