The central legal point established in the judgment is the validity and applicability of the Standards of Weights and Measures Act, 1976 and the Rules to inter-State transactions, emphasizing the Act's aim of consumer protection and standardization of weights and measures.

( 1 ) IN these petitions under Art. 226 of the Constitution the petitioners have sought for a declaration that S. 39 of the Standards of Weights and Measures Act, 1976 (hereinafter referred to as the Act and Rules 1 (3), 2 (s), 4, 6 and 23 of the Standards of Weights and Measures (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 1977 (hereinafter referred to as the Rules) are void and unenforceable. They have also sought for certain other incidental reliefs.

( 2 ) THE petitioners claim to be engaged in the business of selling various commodities who have factories in various parts of the country. Various goods are manufactured by them with the intention of selling them throughout India. The grounds upon which the various provisions of the Act and the Rules are challenged are as follows : (I) That S. 39 of the Act being applicable to only inter-State trade and commerce has no application to sales effected by the petitioners which are inter-State transactions. (ii) Rules 6 and 23 are unreasonable restrictions on the fundamental rights under Art. 19 (1) (g) of the Constitution and they are also violative of the guarantee envisaged in Art. 301 of the Constitution. (iii) That the Act seeks to regulate only inter-State sales of commodities but the Rules seek to govern intra-State sales as well and therefore the same are beyond the ambit of the Act and hence are ultra vires the provisions thereof. (iv) That the definition of 'sale price' in Rule 2 (s) of the rules is ultra vires S. 39 of the Act inasmuch as it takes within its sweep intra-State sales as well. So far as the said definition is made applicable to intra-State sales, the same is ultra vires of the rule making power. (v) That the rules as framed in Rr. 2 (s), 6 and 23 are unreasonable and not practicable to comply with at all inasmuch as the same are arbitrary because of the failure of the Govt. to take into consideration the fluctuation in the prices, the cost of freight being different from place to place, the local taxes being different and the Central sales tax being dependant upon the rate of local taxes and the upward and downward trends in the pricing structure. The said rules having been framed without taking note of these facts is an artificial definition which is beyond the rule making power of the State.

( 3 ) THE concept of consumerism has assumed great significance in recent times in the developing countries. Almost always the consumer movements are poorly financed, usually unpaid and often not very impressive in their presentation of facts and conclusions, they nevertheless are able to encounter a generally sympathetic public with confidence and the movement has slowly and steadily gathered momentum. From the business community consumer movement has met with the fiercest opposition, a posture which still exists to some extent even today. Even so, the demand for urgent reforms became irresistible at making products safer and curbing the most outrageous exploitation of part-time buyers by full-time sellers, and dealing with a host of questionable marketing practices that were successful only because of consumer guillibility or economic illiteracy. The consumer protection was never a serious concern of even governments which had a duty under the Constitution for the welfare of the people as a whole. The principle recognised by law having been "buyer beware or caveat emptor", rules and regulations affecting the industry, trade and commerce having been modelled on that basis the governments all over the world appear to be more interested in earning revenues than in protecting the interests of the consumers. A consumer is taken for granted and almost always ignored. In this background several laws aimed at protecting the consumers were enacted, one of them being the Act.

( 4 ) THE statement of objects and reasons of the Bill culminating in the Act clearly indicate that pursuant to the adoption of international system of units of weights and measures and being a par