Unguided case-selection for special criminal procedure offends article 14 and invalidates the resulting notifications.

Section 5(1) of the West Bengal Special Courts Act, 1950 was held unconstitutional to the extent it allowed the State Government to direct particular cases to Special Courts. The Court found that the Act imposed a materially less advantageous criminal procedure, including exclusion of committal proceedings and other safeguards, and that the power to select individual cases was unguided and lacked any intelligible principle or rational basis linked to the Act's object. The reference of specified cases therefore amounted to arbitrary discrimination under article 14. Notifications issued under that power were also invalid because they rested on the same unconstitutional case-selection mechanism.

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Issues: Whether section 5(1) of the West Bengal Special Courts Act, 1950, insofar as it empowered the State Government to direct specified cases to be tried by Special Courts, violated article 14 of the Constitution by conferring arbitrary and discriminatory power; and whether the notifications issued under that provision were invalid.

Analysis: The majority held that the Act introduced a materially different and less advantageous criminal procedure, including exclusion of committal proceedings, jury or assessors, de novo trial on transfer, revisionary interference in the ordinary course, and other safeguards available under the Code of Criminal Procedure. It further held that the expression in section 5(1) permitting reference of "cases" left the executive with an unrestricted power to select individual cases for Special Court trial without any intelligible principle, standard, or reasonable basis linked to the object of the Act. The preamble referring to speedier trial could not cure this defect in relation to individual case selection, and the resulting classification was held to be arbitrary rather than a valid reasonable classification. The notifications made under that power were also treated as invalid because they embodied the same unconstitutional discrimination.

Conclusion: Section 5(1), to the extent it authorised the State Government to direct particular cases to be tried by Special Courts, was unconstitutional and void under article 14, and the notifications issued under it were invalid.

Final Conclusion: The appeals failed because the impugned provision, as applied to the referral of individual cases, could not survive the equality guarantee, with the result that the special trials lacked jurisdictional foundation.

Ratio Decidendi: A statute that confers unguided power on the executive to single out individual cases for a special criminal procedure, without a reasonable basis of classification having a rational nexus with the legislative object, offends article 14 and is void to that extent.

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