{"id":35542,"date":"2023-05-31T10:06:43","date_gmt":"2023-05-31T04:36:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=35542"},"modified":"2025-04-21T08:40:29","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T03:10:29","slug":"article-299-of-the-constitution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/article-299-of-the-constitution\/","title":{"rendered":"Article 299 of the Constitution"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What is Article 299 of the Indian Constitution?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Procedure to be Followed for Making a Contract<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What are the Requirements for Government or State Contracts?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What was the Case?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The Apex Court\u2019s Ruling<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Supreme Court held that the government, when entering into a contract under the President\u2019s name, cannot claim immunity from the legal provisions of that contract under Article 299 of the Constitution.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is Article 299 of the Indian Constitution?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Article 298: <\/strong>It grants the Centre and the state governments the power to carry on trade or business, acquire, hold, and dispose of property, and make contracts for any purpose.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Article 299:<\/strong> It provides that all contracts made in the exercise of the executive power of the Union or of a State shall be\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Expressed to be made by<\/strong> the President or by the Governor of the State.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Executed on behalf <\/strong>of the President or the Governor by persons<strong> in a manner as directed and authorised by them<\/strong> [Article 299 (1)].<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Procedure to be Followed for Making a Contract:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>In 1954, the top court <\/strong>held that there must be <strong>a definite procedure<\/strong> according to which contracts must be made by agents acting on the government\u2019s behalf; otherwise, public funds may be depleted by illegitimate contracts.<\/li>\n<li>It implies that contracts <strong>not adhering to the manner given in Article 299(1) <\/strong>cannot be enforced by any contracting party.<\/li>\n<li>However, Article 299 (2) says that <strong>neither the President nor the Governor can be personally held liable for such contracts.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What are the Requirements for Government or State Contracts?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>In 1966, the apex court<\/strong> laid down essential requirements for government contracts under Article 299.<\/li>\n<li>3 conditions to be met before a binding contract against the government could arise:\n<ul>\n<li>The contract must be expressed to be made by the Governor or the President;<\/li>\n<li>It must be executed in writing, and<\/li>\n<li>The execution should be by such persons and in such a manner as the Governor or the President might direct or authorise.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What was the Case?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The case dealt with an application filed by Glock Asia-Pacific Limited, a pistol manufacturing company, against the Centre regarding the appointment of an arbitrator in a tender-related dispute.<\/li>\n<li>According to <strong>the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996<\/strong>, any person whose relationship with the parties or counsel of the dispute falls under the 7th Schedule (of the Act) will be ineligible to be appointed as an arbitrator.\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The 7th Schedule includes relationships <\/strong>where the arbitrator is an employee, consultant, advisor, or has any other past or present business relationship with a party.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Apex Court\u2019s Ruling:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Referring to the 246th Law Commission Report, the court observed that when the party appointing an arbitrator is the State, <strong>the duty to appoint an impartial and independent adjudicator is even more onerous<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Thus, the court rejected the Centre\u2019s reliance on Article 299, saying that <strong>Article 299 only lays down the formality<\/strong> that is necessary to bind the government with contractual liability.<\/li>\n<li>Thus, the substantial law relating to the contractual liability of the Government <strong>is to be found in the general laws of the land.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The court also appointed former SC judge Justice I<strong>ndu Malhotra<\/strong> \u201cas the Sole Arbitrator to adjudicate upon the disputes\u201d in the case.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) What is the Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1996?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>It is an Act to consolidate and amend the law relating to domestic arbitration, international commercial arbitration and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards as also to define the law relating to conciliation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2) What is the Law Commission of India?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>It is a non-statutory body constituted by a notification of the Government of India, Ministry of Law &amp; Justice, with a definite term of reference to carry out research in the field of law.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-law\/govt-immunity-contract-president-name-sc-8636329\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Can the govt claim immunity when entering contracts under the President\u2019s name? Here\u2019s what SC has ruled<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Article 299 provides that all contracts made in the exercise of the executive power shall be expressed to be made by the President\/Governor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":35543,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-35542","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}