UPSC Prelims 2021 Question:

A legislation which confers on the executive or administrative authority an unguided and uncontrolled discretionary power in the matter of application of law violates which one of the following Articles of the Constitution of India?

Explanation:

• Article 14 says that the State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India. The concept of ‘equality before law’ is of British origin while the concept of ‘equal protection of laws’ has been taken from the American Constitution.
  
  
• The concept of ‘equality before law’ is an element of the concept of ‘Rule of Law’, propounded by A.V. Dicey, the British jurist. His concept has the following three elements or aspects:
  • Absence of arbitrary power, that is, no man can be punished except for a breach of law.
  • Equality before the law, that is, equal subjection of all citizens to the ordinary law of the land administered by the ordinary law courts.
  • The primacy of the rights of the individual, that is, the constitution is the result of the rights of the individual as defined and enforced by the courts of law rather than the constitution being the source of the individual rights. 
    
    

• The first and the second elements are applicable to the Indian System and not the third one. Thus, uncontrolled discretionary power violates the first element of Rule of law thereby article 14. The Supreme Court held that the ‘Rule of Law’ as embodied in Article 14 is a ‘basic feature’ of the constitution. Hence, it cannot be destroyed even by an amendment.
  
  

Therefore, option (1) is the correct answer.

Subject: Polity | Fundamental Rights