Krishna Iyer, J. - (1.) The challenges in these writ petitions compel us to remind ourselves that under our constitutional system courts are havens of refuge for the toiler, not the exploiter, for the weaker claimant of social justice, not the stronger pretender who seeks to sustain the status quo ante by judicial writ in the name of fundamental right. No higher duty or more solemn responsibility rests upon this court than to uphold every State measure that translates into living law the preambular promise of social justice reiterated in Article 38 of the Constitution. We might have been called upon to examine from this angle of constitutionalised humanism, the vires of the Punjab Cycle Rickshaws (Regulation of Rickshaws) Act, 1976 (Punjab Act 41 of 1975) (the Act for short), designed to deliver the tragic tribe of rickshaw pullers, whose lot in sweat, toil, blood and tears from the exploitative clutches of cycle rickshaw owners by a statutory ban on non-owner rickshaw drivers. But negative bans, without supportive schemes, can be a remedy aggravating the malady. For the hungry human animal, euphemistically called rickshaw puller, loses, in the name of mercy, even the opportunity to slave and live. So, the success of such well-meant statutory schemes depends on the symbiosis of legislative embargo on exploitative working conditions and viable facilities or acceptable alternative whereby shackles are shaken off and self-ownership substituted. Judicial engineering towards this goal is better social justice than dehumanised adjudication on the vires of legislation. Court and counsel agreed on this constructive approach and strove through several adjournments, to mould a scheme of acquisition of cycle rickshaws by licensed rickshaw pullers without financial hurdles, suretyship problems and, more than all, that heartless enemy, at the implementation level of all progressive projects best left unmentioned. Several adjournments, several formulae and several modifications resulted in reaching a hopefully workable proposal. In fairness to the State, we must mention that when the impugned legislation was enacted Government had such a supportive financial arrangement and many rickshawpullers had been bailed out of their economic bondage. Some hitch somewhere prevented several desperate rickshaw drivers getting the benefit, which drove them to this Court. Anyway, all is well that ends well and judicial activism gets its highest bonus when its order wipes some tears from some eyes. Here, the bench and the bar have that reward.
(2.) These prefatory observations explain why a pronouncement on the validity of the Act is not called for, although prima facie, we see no constitutional sin in the statute as now framed. We now proceed to set out in our judgment the terms and conditions which will carry with them the implications and obligations of undertakings to, the court so far as the parties to the case are concerned. Counsel for the State assures us that the Credit Guarantee Corporation of India (Small Loans) will also abide by the court's direction although not a party formally. So also, the Punjab National Bank which is the financing agency parties have agreed upon.
(3.) There is no dispute that the purpose of the statute is obviously benign as is manifest from the Statement of Objects and Reasons which runs thus:- "In order to eliminate the exploitation of rickshaw pullers by the middlemen and for giving a fillip to the scheme of the State Government for arranging interest-free loans for the actual pullers to enable them to purchase their own rickshaws, it is considered necessary to regulate the issue of licences in favour of the actual drivers of cycle-rickshaws, plying within the Municipal areas of the State. Section 3 which clamps down the impugned ban reads thus: 3 (1) Notwithstanding anything contained to the contrary in the Punjab Municipal Act, 1911 or any rule or order or bye-law made thereunder or any other law for the time being in force, no owner of a cycle rickshaw shall be granted any licence in respect of his cycle rickshaw nor his licence shall be renewed by any Municipal authority after the commencement of this Act unless the cycle rickshaw is to be plied by such owner himself: (2) Every licence in respect of a cycle rickshaw granted or renewed prior to the commencement of this Act shall stand revoked, on the expiry of a period of thirty days after such commencement if it does not conform to the provisions of this Act".;