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| Diagram for Doctrine of Eclipse |
Doctrine of
Eclipse
In the case of Keshavan
Madhava Menon v. The State of Bombay[1], the law in question was
an existing law at the time when the Constitution came into force. That
existing law imposed on the exercise of the right guaranteed to the citizens of
India by article 19(1)(g) restrictions which could not be justified as
reasonable under clause (6) as it then stood and consequently under
article 13(1)[2]
that existing law became void “to the extent of such inconsistency”.
The court said
that the law became void not in toto or for all purposes or for
all times or for all persons but only “to the extent of such inconsistency”,
that is to say, to the extent it became inconsistent with the provisions of
Part III which conferred the fundamental rights on the citizens.
This reasoning
was also adopted in the case of Bhikaji Narain Dhakras And Others v. The
State Of Madhya Pradesh And Another[3].
This case also held that “on and after the commencement of the Constitution,
the existing law, as a result of its becoming inconsistent with the
provisions of article 19(1)(g) read with clause (6) as it then stood, could not
be permitted to stand in the way of the exercise of that fundamental right. Article
13(1) by reason of its language cannot be read as having obliterated the entire
operation of the inconsistent law or having wiped it out altogether the
statute, book. Such law existed for all past transactions and for enforcement
of rights and liabilities accrued before the date of the Constitution. The law
continued in force, even after the commencement of the Constitution, with
respect to persons who were not citizens and could not claim the fundamental
right”.
The court also
said that article 13(1) had the effect of nullifying or rendering the existing
law which had become inconsistent with fundamental right as it then stood,
ineffectual, nugatory and devoid of any legal force or binding effect, only
with respect to the exercise of the fundamental right on and after the date of
the commencement of the Constitution. Finally the court said something that
we today know of as the crux of Doctrine of Eclipse.
“The true
position is that the impugned law became, as it were, eclipsed,
for the time being, by the fundamental right.”
We see that such
laws are not dead for all purposes. They exist for the purposes of pre-Constitution
rights and liabilities and they remain operative, even after the commencement
of the Constitution, as against non-citizens. It is only as against
the citizens that they remain in a dormant or moribund condition.
Thus the
Doctrine of Eclipse provides for the validation of Pre-Constitution Laws that
violate fundamental rights upon the premise that such laws are not null and
void ab initio but become unenforceable only to the extent of such
inconsistency with the fundamental rights. If any subsequent amendment
to the Constitution removes the inconsistency or the conflict of the existing
law with the fundamental rights, then the Eclipse vanishes and that particular law
again becomes active again.
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