Colourable Legislation - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition colourable-legislation

Definition :

Colourable legislation, the doctrine of colourable legislation does not involve any question of bona fides or mala fides on the part of the legislature. The whole doctrine resolves itself into the question of competency of a particular legislature to enact a particular law. If the legislature is competent to pass a particular law, the motives which impelled it to act are really irrelevant. On the other hand, if the legislature lacks competency, the question of motive does not arise at all. Whether a statute is constitutional or not is thus always a question of power. The idea conveyed by the expression is that although apparently a legislature in passing a statute purported to act within the limits of its powers, yet in substance and in reality it transgressed these powers, the transgression being veiled by what appears, on proper examination, to be a mere pretense or disguise, K.C. Gajapathi Narayan Deo v. State, (1954) SCR 1: AIR 1953 SC 375. See also Gullapalli Nageswara Rao v. Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation, AIR 1959 SC 308: (1959) Supp 1 SCR 319.

It is only when a legislature which has no power to legislate frames a legislation so camouflaging it as to appear to be within its competence when it knows it is not, it can be said that the legislation so enacted is colourable legislation, Ashok Kumar v. Union of India, (1991) 3 SCC 498 (509): AIR 1991 SC 1792, [Constitution of India, Arts. 245 and 246]