A) Article 12 of the Indian constitution
According to article 12, ‘State’ includes government, legislature and all local and ‘other authorities’ within the territory of India. Fundamental rights can be claimed against the ‘State’. If the term’ other authority’ is interpreted expansively, the category of bodies brought within the discipline of fundamental rights also increases. In course of time, the Supreme Court has developed the thesis that any body, statutory, non-statutory, administrative, quasijudicial, which can be characterized as an ‘instrumentality’ of
the government, can be regarded as an ‘authority’ under article Thus, not only a government department, but even an instrumentality of the government is subject to fundamental rights. In course of time, more and more bodies have been held to be authorities within the meaning of article 12.
The new judicial trend of expanding the significance of ‘authority’ may be said to have started with Ajay Hasta v Khalid Mujib, where a registered society managing the regional engineering college in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, which was sponsored by the Government of India, was held to be an
‘authority under article 12
B) Other authority
In course of time, the Supreme Court has been expanding the horizon of the expression ‘other authority’ in article 12. This has been done with a view to inject respect for human rights and social conscience in the corporate structure. In giving an expansive interpretation to the term ‘other authority’ in article 12, the court is discharging its protective role, i.e. to protect the fundamental rights from being nullified by the government adopting the expedient of setting up various types of bodies to carry on such functions which otherwise would have been carried on by itself.
As the Supreme Court emphasized in Som Prakash,the contrivance of carrying on business activities by the State ‘through statutory corporations, government companies and other bodies with legal personality, simplifies and facilitates transactions and operations beyond the traditional and tardy processes of governmental desks and cells noted for their red tape’, but the use of corporate methodology ‘is not to liberate the State from its basic obligation’ to obey fundamental rights. Otherwise, a plurality of corporations can take over all activities and eclipse fundamental rights completely.
Aishwarya Says:
I have always been against Glorifying Over Work and therefore, in the year 2021, I have decided to launch this campaign “Balancing Life”and talk about this wrong practice, that we have been following since last few years. I will be talking to and interviewing around 1 lakh people in the coming 2021 and publish their interview regarding their opinion on glamourising Over Work.
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In the year 2021, we wrote about 1000 Inspirational Women In India, in the year 2022, we would be featuring 5000 Start Up Stories.