Ram Jawaya
In Ram Jawaya’s case, the procedure which was framed by the State of Punjab prior to May 1950 for selection and approval of text books for use in schools was that the State Government used to invite publishers and authors to submit their books for examination and approval by the Education Department and the State Government after scrutiny selected out of them a certain number of text books, any one of them could be used by the schools. This procedure was slightly altered in May 1950 and under the altered procedure, the State Government took upon itself the monopoly of publishing text books in some of the subjects and with regard to the rest, the State Government selected and approved text books–not several as before but only one on each subject-out of those submitted by the publishers and authors and reserved for itself a certain royalty on the sale proceeds of such approved text books.
In 1952, however, changes of a far more drastic character were introduced by a notification dated 9th August, 1952 issued by the State Government. By this notification the State Government took over the publishing, printing and selling of text books exclusively in its own hands and the private publishers were altogether ousted from this business. The petitioners who were a firm carrying on the business of preparing, printing, publishing and selling text books there–upon moved this Court under Art. 32 of the Constitution praying for writs of mandamus directing the State Government to withdraw the notifications of 1950 and 1952 on the ground that they contravened the fundamental right of the petitioners under Art. 19(1) (g). This Court, however, took the view that no fundamental right of the petitioners to carry on their business of preparing,-printing, publishing and selling text books was infringed by the notifications issued by the State Government in furtherance of their policy of nationalisation of text books for students and the petitioners were, therefore, not entitled to any relief under Art. 32 of the Constitution.
Mukherjea, C. J., speaking on behalf of a unanimous Court, pointed out:
“The procedure hitherto followed was that the Government used to invite publishers and authors to submit their books for examination and approval by the Education Department and after selection was made by the Government, the size, contents as well as the prices of the books were fixed and it was left to the publishers or authors to print and publish them and offer them for sale to the pupils. So long as this system was in vogue the only right which publishers, like the petitioners had, was to offer their books for inspection and approval by the Government. They had no right to insist on any of their books being accepted as text books.
So the utmost that could be said is that there was merely a chance or prospect of any or some of their books being approved as text books by the Government. Such chances are incidental to all trades and businesses and there is no fundamental right guaranteeing them. A trader might be lucky in securing a particular market for his goods but if he loses that field because the particular customers for some reason or other do not choose to buy goods from him, it is not open to him to say that it was his fundamental right to have his old customers for ever.
On the one hand, therefore, there was nothing but a chance or prospect which the publishers had of having their books approved by the Government, on the ‘other hand the Government had the undisputed right to adopt any method of selection they liked and if they ultimately decided that after approving the text books they would purchase the copyright in them from the authors and others provided the latter were willing to transfer the same to the Government on certain terms, we fail to see what right of the publishers to carry on their trade or business is affected by it. Nobody is taking away the publishers’ right to print and publish any books they like and to offer them for sale but if they have no right that their books should be approved as text books by the Government it is immaterial so far as they are concerned whether the Government approves of text books submitted by other persons who are willing to sell their copyrights in the books to them, or choose to engage authors for the purpose of preparing the text books which they take up on themselves to print and publish The action of the Government-does not amount to an infraction of the fundamental right guaranteed by Article 19(1) (g) of the Constitution.”
Source:
Naraindas Indurkhya v. The State of Madhya Pradesh and Others
Date of Judgment: 18/03/1974
Bench: Bhagwati P N, Ray A N (CJ); Khanna H R; Matthew K K; Alagiriswami A
Citation: 1974 AIR 1232; 1974 SCR (3) 624; 1974 SCC (4) 788
