Arbitrariness

In one line

Article 14 grew a second test: a State act may be struck down for being arbitrary even where nobody has been treated differently from anybody else.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: the classification test asks whether a law that treats one group differently has drawn the line reasonably. It cannot reach a law or an act which treats everybody the same but does so on no rational basis at all, because there is then no classification to attack. In E.P. Royappa v. State of Tamil Nadu the Supreme Court held that equality is antithetic to arbitrariness, that the two are sworn enemies, and that where an act is arbitrary it is implicit in it that it is unequal and therefore violative of article 14. In Ramana Dayaram Shetty v. International Airport Authority of India the Court added that every action of the executive government must be informed with reason and free from arbitrariness, which is the essence of the rule of law. The doctrine now extends to legislation under the name of manifest arbitrariness.

Why a second test was needed

The classification test has a structural limit that is easy to state and easy to forget.

It works only where there is a classification. If a rule applies to everybody in the field identically, nobody can say they were treated differently from a comparable person, and the twin test has nothing to bite on. Yet a rule may be identically applied and still be indefensible: a selection method that bears no relation to what it selects for, a condition imposed for no reason, a benefit withdrawn on a whim.

The classification test also invites a formalism. A court that asks only whether the line is intelligible and connected to the object can end up sustaining almost anything, because a competent draftsman can always supply an object the classification fits.

The arbitrariness doctrine answers both. It asks not "was the line drawn reasonably" but "was there any reason at all".

The founding passage

Facts. E.P. Royappa v. State of Tamil Nadu, AIR 1974 SC 555, (1974) 4 SCC 3, decided 23 November 1973. A senior IAS officer holding the post of Chief Secretary of Tamil Nadu was transferred to two other posts which he contended were inferior, and alleged mala fides and a breach of articles 14 and 16.

Held. The plea of mala fides failed on the evidence. On article 14 the Court said that equality is a dynamic concept which cannot be cribbed, cabined and confined within traditional and doctrinaire limits, and then:

From a positivistic point of view, equality is antithetic to arbitrariness. In fact equality and arbitrariness are sworn enemies; one belongs to the rule of law in a republic while the other, to the whim and caprice of an absolute monarch. Where an act is arbitrary it is implicit in it that it is unequal both according to political logic and constitutional law and is therefore violative of Art. 14.