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Doctrine of pith and substance

  • September 9, 2021
  • Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
  • Category: DPN Topics
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Doctrine of pith and substance

Subject – Polity

Concept –

  • The Doctrine of Pith and Substance is one of the oldest theories used to resolve constitutional matters in India. Unfolding the literal meaning of the doctrine, the “pith” in it refers to the true nature or the essence of something and the “substance” in it means an essential part, thereby, the doctrine is termed as the “most significant part of something in which its true essence lies”.
  • The power granted to legislatures to formulate a statute under three lists of the seventh schedule in the Constitution of India is bound to overlap at certain points but this can’t be used as a reason to make the whole statute null and void. Therefore, incidental effects or encroachments are permissible under Constitutional Law while determining the competence of particular legislatures to the extent of subject matters in the three lists is in question. This rule is known as the Doctrine of Pith and Substance.
  • The Doctrine of Pith and Substance relates to Article 246 that deals with the three lists enumerated in the Seventh Schedule of the Indian Constitution. It is used when there is a question on the competence of the legislature on making a particular enactment under the three lists. The court for that matter must look into the substance of the enactment. If the court finds that the law formulated is very much within the substance of the matter assigned to the framers then the statute is deemed completely valid or as the case may be.
  • However, while deciding so, if the court finds out that there is an incidental effect of the application of the statute on another field that is beyond the competence of the legislature, then such findings must be discarded. The reason being, that it is possible that a particular statute may incidentally encroach upon a matter beyond the legislature’s competence but such encroachment doesn’t render the whole statute to be a nullity.
Doctrine of pith and substance Polity

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