Article 14 of the

Constitution of India The Constitution of India (IAST: ) is the supreme law of India. The document lays down the framework that demarcates fundamental political code, structure, procedures, powers, and duties of government institutions and sets out fundamental ri ...

provides for equality before the law or equal protection of the laws within the territory of India. It states:

"The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India."

Reasonable Classification and Non-Arbitrariness

Article 14 guarantees equality to all persons, including

citizens Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection". Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...

corporations
and foreigners. Its provisions have come up for discussion in the

Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

in a number of cases and the case o
Ram Krishna Dalmia vs Justice S R Tendolkar
reiterated its meaning and scope as follows. Article 14 permits classification, so long as it is 'reasonable', but forbid
class legislation
A classification of groups of people is considered reasonable when: # The classification is based upon intelligible differentia that distinguishes persons or things that are grouped from others that are left out of the group, and, # The differential has a rational relation with the objective of the act. In addition, the classification must be non-arbitrary. Supreme Court i
E. P. Royappa (1973)
provided guidance on arbitrariness of an act:

"Equality is a dynamic concept with many aspects and dimensions and it cannot be ‘cribbed, cabined and confined’ within the traditional and doctrinaire limits. From the positivistic point of view, equality is antithetic to arbitrariness. In fact, equality and arbitrariness are sworn enemies… Where an act is arbitrary, it is implicit that it is unequal both according to political logic and constitutional law and is therefore violative of Article 14."

Notes

References

014 Discrimination in India {{India-gov-stub