Judgment

BEG, J.:- The two Writ Petitions before us under Article 32 of the Constitution of India by persons carrying on the business of silkworm cocoon rearing and reeling challenge the validity of various amendments of the Mysore Silkworm Seed and Cocoon (Regulation of Production, Supply and Distribution) Mysore Act 5 of 1960 (hereinafter referred to as the Principal Act ) by the Mysore Silkworm Seed and Cocoon. (Regulation of Production, Supply and Distribution) (Amendment), Act, 1969 (hereinafter called as the Amending Act ). The petitioners alleged that their fundamental rights guaranteed by Article 19 (1) (g) of the Constitution have been illegally interfered with by these amendments in so far as the amendments impose additional restrictions upon these rights without having secured the Presidential sanction required by the proviso to Article 304 (b) of the Constitution.

2. Article 304 of the Constitution reads as follows:

"304. Notwithstanding anything in Article 301 or Article 303, the Legislature of a State may by law

(a) impose on goods imported from other States or the Union territories any tax to which similar goods manufactured or produced in that State are subject to, however, as not to discriminate between goods so imported and goods so manufactured or produced; and

(b) impose such reasonable restrictions on the freedom of trade, commerce or intercourse with or within that State as may be required in the public interest:

Provided that no Bill or amendment for the purposes of clause (b) shall be introduced or moved in the Legislature of a State without the previous sanction of the President".

3. It will be seen that Art. 301 of the Constitution provides: "Subject to the other provisions of this Part, trade, commerce and intercourse throughout the territory of India shall be free". Article 302 limits the powers of Parliament to impose "restrictions on the freedom of trade, commerce or intercourse between one State and another or within any part of the territory of India", to such restrictions "as may be required in the public interest". Restrictions falling under Art. 304 (b) must not only be reasonable but are expressly required to be in public interest. It is in order to ensure that purposes of Art. 304 (b) are satisfied that a bill in a State Legislature has to obtain the previous sanction of the President. It is worth remembering that Art. 255 of the Constitution provides for a retrospective curing of the defect of want of previous sanction by the President so that, where this requirement has been overlooked before an enactment, public interest may not suffer by any want of sanction.

4. The only question, on merits, which has been argued before us on behalf of the petitioners is: Do the changes introduced by the Amending Act amount to such additional restrictions as to require the sanction of the President even though the Principal Act had received such sanction at the appropriate stage? The reasonableness of any restrictions. new or old, has not been challenged before us. All that is urged is that the additional restrictions introduced by the Amending Act were bound to obtain the previous sanction of the President before they are introduced in the form of a Bill in the Legislature of a State because that is the Constitutional mandate.

5. As the restrictions covered by Article 304 (b) have to be those on "freedom of trade and commerce", which is a broader and somewhat different concept than that of an individual citizen s freedom to trade and carry on business, guaranteed by Article 19 (1) (g), a preliminary objection has been raised, on behalf of the State of Mysore, that no petition under Article 32 of the Constitution can lie to challenge such restrictions as they could not be on rights guaranteed by Article 19 (1) (g). Reliance was, placed on Ram Chandra Palai v. State of Orissa, 1956 SCR 28 = (AIR 1956 SC 298), where there is an observation indicating that the petitioner under Article 32 could not rely upon the g