Name: Aanandini Kishor Thakare
Roll no.: 1
Unit: 2 (Applicability of the FRs and the State)
Judgement: Zee Telefilms Ltd. And Ors. Vs. Union of India (UOI) and Ors.
āOther Authoritiesā
Part III of our constitution grants certain fundamental rights, such as the right to
equality, right to life and liberty, right to freedom etc. that are justiciable in nature. Some of
these rights are available to āall personsā and others only to the citizens of India. These rights
are granted to protect people from arbitrary state action and put certain checks on the power
of the state and exist so citizens may have an opportunity to develop and to preserve human
dignity. They are enforceable against the state via Article 32, which states that any individual
whose fundamental right has been violated may move directly to the Supreme court which is
seen as the guarantor of these rights. Most of these rights can only be claimed against the
āStateā, it then becomes extremely important to determine exactly what state means. For this
purpose, Article 12 defines the term, and it includes in its definition the āGovernment and
Parliament of India and the Government and the Legislature of each of the States and all
local or other authorities within the territory of India or under the control of the Government
of India.ā1 As we can see, the first few authorities mentioned in Article 12 are quite clear, but
local authorities and other arthurites are a bit ambiguous and need unpacking. Next, we shall
look at how this has been done.
While the term ālocal authoritiesā was defined by the General Clauses Act of 1987, but āother
authoritiesā has been interpreted on a case to case basis. There have been several tests laid
down in this regard, they are- The Control test, The Public Functions test, and The Statutory
Powers test. In the Control test, we look at who the actor is. Thus, the fact to be determined is
whether the body is in any way under the control of the government. In cases where a govt
gives away rights to a private company, or buys shares in a private company, or in any way
controls the actions of or acts indirectly through any body, this test would hold it to be state.
This is because even though the body is private, it is the govt acting through them. This is
useful when it comes to preventing the govt from avoiding its constitutional duties merely by
setting up corporates or companies or transferring rights to them. Whereas, in the Public
Functions test, the nature of the functions performed by the body, whether private or public,
is considered. Here, control of the govt or statutory power would be of no consequence. If the
functions performed by the body in question are of a public nature, they will automatically be
subject to fundamental rights and be held as āstateā. Lastly, we have the Statutory Power test,
where we take into consideration whether the body in question was created under a statute or
if it has statutory authority to create laws or give directions having the force of law and
necessarily affect third parties.
In the past, the Supreme Court has adopted several variants of the tests mentioned above to
determine if a body would fall under the term āother authorities.ā We can trace this evolution
by looking at the following cases-
(i) Rajasthan Electricity board vs. Mohan Lal (1967) In this case which was decided by a
five judge bench, it was held that the Rajasthan State Electricity Board could be held to be
state and the reasoning was that the body must either be created by a statute or must be
controlled by the government.2
Next, we have (ii) Sukhdev Singh vs. Bhagat Ram (1975) Here the nature of corporations
such as Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), and
1 Constitution of India art. 12
2 1967 SCR (3) 377 Rajasthan Electricity board vs. Mohan Lal (1967)
