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Case Analysis: THE BERUBARI UNION CASE
Facts:
In the case of Re Berubari Case, the States of Punjab and Bengal were to be partitioned. A commission was appointed as Sir Cyril Redcliffe as its chairman for apportionment of the state of Bihar. A boundary was fixed between India and Pakistan are known as the Redcliffe line. After this, there arose certain tiffs between India and Pakistan on the exact location of the apportionment. Sir Radcliffe apportioned the district of Jalpaiguri between the two countries by giving some thanas to India while remaining thanas to Pakistan. During the process, he omitted one than, ie; Berubari Union No. 12, and was later awarded to India on 12Th of August, 1947. The omission made by the commission and erroneous depiction on the map gave Pakistan the liberty to claim the territory as its own.
During all these processes was underway, the Indian Constitution came into force on 26th of January, 1950, and Article 1 of our constitution provided India shall be a Union of States and shall be mentioned in Part A, B, and C of the First Schedule of the constitution. West Bengal was included in Part A of the Indian Constitution and Berubari Union No. 12 was also included in it as it was awarded by the boundary Commission to India.
The Pakistani Government contended its claim over the Berubari Union for the first time in 1952. The areas under the Berubari union remained under the territory of India till such time was a part of West Bengal. The dispute was resolved in 1958 by an agreement wherein half of the Berubari Union was awarded to India while the other half was retained by India.
Issues:
The issues raised before the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India were:
- Whether there is a need for legislative action to carry out an agreement relating to the Berubari union?
- Whether the case where there is such a need for action, does a law of parliament concerning Article 3 of the Constitution of India, 1950 sufficient, or is an amendment of the constitution following article 368 of constitution necessary, besides, or in the alternative?
- Whether the with Article 3 of the Constitution of India parliament empowered to implement the agreement relating to Berubari’s Union or is there a need for amendment under Article 368 of the Constitution for such action?
Judgment:
After hearing arguments advanced by both the parties and considering the facts of the case the Supreme court of India stated that the parliament has to first amend article 3 of the constitution under article 368 of the constitution only if the Parliament chooses first to pass a law amending Art. 3 of the Constitution as indicated above; in that case, parliament may have to pass a law on those lines under Article 368 of the constitution of India and then follow it up with a law relatable to the amended Art. 3 to implement the agreement as law relatable to Article 3 of the Indian constitution would be incompetent in this context the bench opined.
The court further ruled that even though the preamble forms as a key to the mind of the makers of the constitution, and strictly talks about India being a sovereign yet it cannot restrain the legislation from its functions, nor can it be used for deciding ambiguous part of our constitution. It is not a source of the several powers conferred to the parliament under the provisions of the Constitution; Such powers embrace those expressly granted in the body of the Constitution and such as may be implied from those granted; What is true about the powers is equally true about the prohibitions and limitations; The Preamble of our constitution did not indicate the assumptions that the first part of the Preamble postulates a very serious limitation on one of the very important attributes of sovereignty.
Conclusion:
There are certain instances when the legislature seeks advice on the Constitutionality and legality of a number of its own actions. In my opinion, the Supreme Court must attempt to interpret the laws in such a way that it doesn't lower down the quality of the Indian Constitution our forefathers have given to us and it also doesn't crumple within the eyes of other countries tarnishing the image of the lengthiest Constitution of the globe.
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