Page:29357 2016 1 1501 44512 Judgement 11-May-2023.pdf/43

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PART F

the Constitution must be read to include Union territories. Accordingly, we agree with the interpretation of Article 367 rendered by this Court in Advance Insurance (supra).

58. The findings in Advance Insurance (supra) were later reiterated by this Court in Prem Kumar Jain (supra). In Prem Kumar Jain (supra), a four-Judge Bench of this Court held that Article 372A is a special provision introduced to make the 1956 Constitution amendment workable:

“7. [...] The definition of the expression “State” as it stood before November 1, 1956, became unsuitable and misleading on the coming into force of the Constitution (Seventh Amendment) Act, 1956, from November 1, 1956, and it will, for obvious reasons, be futile to contend that it should have continued to be applicable for all time to come and remained “the final definition of ‘State’” merely because the period of three years provided by clause (3)(a) of Article 372 of the Constitution expired and was not extended by an amendment of that clause, or because Article 367(1) was not amended by the Seventh Amendment Act “to say that adaptations made in the General clauses Act otherwise than those made under Article 372(2) would be applicable to the interpretation of the Constitution”. [...] It was a special provision, and it was meant to serve the purpose of making the Seventh Amendment Act workable. As has been held by this Court in Management of Advance Insurance Co. Ltd. v. Shri Gurudasmal [(1970) 1 SCC 633 : (1970) 3 SCR 881] , Article 372-A gave a fresh power to the President which was equal and analogous to the power under Article 372(2).”

59. We shall now deal with the decisions of this Court which have held that the

expression ‘State’ in Article 246 does not include a Union Territory. In T.M. Kanniyan v. CIT[1], a Constitution Bench of this Court discussed the applicability


  1. (1968) 2 SCR 103

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