S BAGAVATHY Vs. STATE OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Constitution is the documentation of the founding faiths of a Nation and the fundamental directions of the fulfillment. An organic, but not pedantic approach in interpreting the constitutional validity of any enactment should be the guiding principle in the judicial process. Finding of solution for the gruesome evils in economic and social life of the citizens, through the healing art of promoting Rule of Law, blending the whole statute harmoniously, without being tempted by the game of hair - splitting, to achieve the common object of the legislation should be the basic rule of construction while testing the constitutional validity of a legislation, particularly when it deals with economic and social reliefs, because the distance between societal realities and constitutional challenge often creates a dilemma while considering the legislative competency relating to a socio - economic legislation. The Court, therefore, should be more cautious as well as conscious as to its jurisdiction while irrationalising the legislative competency of the Legislature or rationalising Court's power to annul the legislation.

(2.) With this, we propose to experiment, analyze, and render our observation on the constitutional validity of the Tamil Nadu Protection of Interests of Depositors (in Financial Establishments) Act, 1997 (for brevity, "Tamil Nadu Act"), which, in fact, had already been upheld by the learned Single Judge of this Court (P.Sathasivam,J.) in Thiru Muruga Finance v. State of Tamil Nadu (2000 (II) CTC 609 = 2000 - 3 - L.W.298), and the same has become final for not having been appealed against.

(3.) In the meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of India addressed all the State Governments to enact suitable legislation along the lines of the Tamil Nadu Act, since existing legislation was found to be inadequate to deal with the financial establishments, which have duped large number of depositors and collected crores of rupees on false promise to repay the same with higher rate of interest, which is not viable commercially.