Doctrine of Colourable

Legislation
Doctrine of Colourable Legislation - Meaning
• “Legislative powers between the Central and the State Legislatures have
been distributed by the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution.

• If Parliament enacts a law under any of the entries in List II of the

Seventh Schedule, it will be declared invalid for violating the
constitutional limits.

• Similarly, if any of the State Legislatures enacts a law falling within any
of the entries in List I of the Seventh Schedule, such law is said as not
enacted due to want of legislative competence.
• The doctrine of colourable legislation is strictly confined to the question
of legislative competence of the State Legislature to enact a Statute.

• When such law, on its face, looks to be enacted by a competent

legislature but on examination of “pith and substance” of the
legislation, it transpires that the legislature was not competent to
enact the law, such a law is termed as colourable legislation.
• “The concept was classically stated by the Supreme Court in K.C.
Gajapati Narayan Deo v. State of Orissa.

• In this case, the Agricultural Income Tax (Amendment) Act, 1950, was
attacked as a colourable piece of legislation constituting a fraud on
the Constitution.
• The object of the Act, as stated in the objects and reasons, was to
enhance agricultural income tax for financing various development
schemes in the State.

• It was contended that the real object was totally different, that it was
to be used as a means of effecting a drastic reduction in the income of
the intermediaries, so that the compensation payable under the
Orissa Estates Abolition Act, 1952, might be reduced to almost
nothing.
• It was held:

“The doctrine of colourable legislation does not involve any

question of bona fides or mala fides on the part of the legislature.

• The whole doctrine resolves itself into the question of competency of

a particular legislature to enact a particular law.

• If the legislature is competent to pass a particular law, the motives

which impelled it to act are really irrelevant.
• On the other hand, if the legislature lacks competency, the question of motive
does not arise at all.

• Whether a statute is constitutional or not is thus always a question of power.

• The idea conveyed by the expression is that although apparently a legislature

in passing a statute purported to act within the limits of its powers, yet in
substance and in reality it transgressed(contravene or break the rules) these
powers, the transgression being veiled by what appears, on proper
examination, to be a mere pretense or disguise.” (source – B.M. Gandhi,
Interpretation of Statutes)
Observation of the Supreme Court of India in K.C. Gajapati Narayan
Singh Deo v. State of Orissa AIR 1953 SC 375

• “If the constitution of a State distributes the legislative power amongst

different bodies, which have to act within their respective spheres
marked out by specific legislative entries, or if there are limitations on
the legislative authority in the shape of Fundamental Rights, questions
do arise as to whether the legislature in a particular
• has or has not, in respect of the subject-matter of the statute, or in
the method of enacting it, transgressed the limits of its constitutional
powers.

• Such transgression may be patent, manifest or direct, but it may also

be disguised, covert and indirect and it is to this latter class of cases
that the expression ’colourable legislation’ has been applied in certain
judicial pronouncements.
• The idea conveyed by the expression is that although a legislature in
passing a statute purports to act within the limits of its powers, yet in
substance and in reality it transgresses those powers, the
transgression being veiled by what appears on proper examination to
be a mere pretence or disguise.
• In other words, it is the substance and if the subject-matter in
substance is something which is beyond the powers of that
Legislature to legislate upon, the form in which the law is clothed
would not save it from condemnation.

• The legislature cannot violate the constitutional prohibition by

employing the indirect method.”
• The basic theme is ‘you cannot do indirectly what you cannot do
directly.’

• The principle of colourable legislation imputes no motives or mala

fides to the law maker.

• The main question is whether the law enacted is within the

designated domain or outside of it.”