Understanding the Doctrine of Proportionality in Law

2316 Words5 Pages

“You must not use a steam hammer to crack a nut if a nut cracker would do.” -Lord Diplock The Doctrine of Proportionality is a general concept in law which is used to ensure the presence of fairness and justice in statutory interpretation processes. First enunciated in the High State Administrative Courts in Germany in the late 19th century to review the actions of the police, this doctrine has its application in several branches of law. For instance, in Constitutional law, it keeps a balance between the restriction imposed by a corrective measure and the severity of the nature of the prohibited act. Within Criminal Law, …show more content…

Whenever a restriction is imposed on the Fundamental Rights of a person, it has to go through the test of reasonability. For this purpose, the Indian Courts have always used the Doctrine of Proportionality. However, whether the Doctrine of Proportionality can be applied where Fundamental Rights are not involved is still not certain. In the case Union of India v. G. Ganayutham , the Court left this question open. Union of India v. G. Ganayutham In this case, the Respondent was working as the Superintendent of Central Excise. He was subjected to a punishment of withholding 50% of the pension and 50% of his gratuity. A writ petition was filed in the High Court which was later moved to the Administrative Tribunal. The Tribunal held the punishment to be too severe. Again an appeal was made to the Supreme Court. The Court set aside the order of the Tribunal saying that the original punishment was not found to be too severe when the Wednesbury Test was applied to it and hence, it was rational and reasonable. This Court observed that: "The applicability of doctrine of proportionality even in administrative law sphere is yet a debatable issue." APPLICATION OF …show more content…

v. Workmen In this case, some workers had remained absent treating a particular day as holiday. On ground of misconduct, these workers were dismissed from service. The Supreme Court observed that the absence could have been treated as leave without pay. The workman might have been warned and fined. Court further said, “it is impossible to think that any reasonable employer would have imposed the extreme punishment of dismissal on its entire permanent staff in this matter”. Ranjit Thakur v. Union of India & Ors. The appellant was a signal man in the Signal Regiment of the Armed Services. He was serving out a sentence of 28 days rigorous imprisonment imposed on him by the Commanding officer of the Regiment for violating norms for presenting representations to higher officers. He was alleged to have committed another offence by refusing to eat his food on March 29, 1985 when ordered to do so. He was charged under section 41(2) of the Army Act, 1950 for disobeying a lawful command given by his superior officer. A sentence of rigorous imprisonment for one year was imposed by a Summary Court Martial. He was removed to the civil prison and he served out the

Open Document