doctrine of severability
Article 13 makes a law void only “to the extent of” its inconsistency with fundamental rights. So where the valid and invalid parts of a statute are separable, the court strikes down the bad part and keeps the rest. The test is whether the legislature would have enacted the valid part without the invalid one, and whether what remains is a complete and workable code.
In R.M.D. Chamarbaugwalla v. Union of India the Supreme Court read the Prize Competitions Act as applying only to gambling competitions and upheld it to that extent, setting out the rules of severability. If the valid and invalid parts are so bound up that they cannot be separated, the whole provision falls. The doctrine is also called separability.
Example
Applying the doctrine of severability, the court struck down only the proviso and left the rest of the section in force.
In Indian law
- Article 13, Constitution of India
- R.M.D. Chamarbaugwalla v. Union of India, 1957 INSC 35
See also
doctrine of eclipse · doctrine of waiver
Read more in the study notes
- Article 13: pre- and post-constitutional laws, severability, eclipse and waiver (Constitutional Law I)
- Constitutional interpretation (Constitutional Law II)
- Presumptions in statutory interpretation (Interpretation of Statutes and Principles of Legislation)
- Judicial review: notions, foundations and theories (Judicial and Legislative Process)
- Exemptions from disclosure: sections 8, 9 and 10 (Right to Information)
- The Freedom of Information Act, 2002 (Right to Information)