the test of reasonableness
the test of reasonableness was introduced by the first amendment and the same fell for jural exploration within no time, in State of Madras vs. V.G. Row47. The said case arose out of a judgment of the Madras High Court quashing a Government Order declaring a society known as ‘People’s Education Society’ as an unlawful association and also declaring as unconstitutional, Section 15(2)(b) of the Indian Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1908, as amended by the Indian Criminal Law Amendment (Madras) Act, 1950. While upholding the judgment of the Madras High Court, this Court indicated as to how the test of reasonableness has to be expounded. The relevant portion of the judgment reads as follows: “23. It is important in this context to bear in mind that the test of reasonableness, wherever prescribed, should be applied to each individual statute impugned, and no abstract standard, or general pattern of 47(1952) 1 SCC 410 36 reasonableness can be laid down as applicable to all cases. The nature of the right alleged to have been infringed, the underlying purpose of the restrictions imposed, the extent and urgency of the evil sought to be remedied thereby, the disproportion of the imposition, the prevailing conditions at the time, should all enter into the judicial verdict. In evaluating such elusive factors and forming their own conception of what is reasonable, in all the circumstances of a given case, it is inevitable that the social philosophy and the scale of values of the Judges participating in the decision should play an important part, and the limit to their interference with legislative judgment in such cases can only be dictated by their sense of responsibility and selfrestraint and the sobering reflection that the Constitution is meant not only for people of their way of thinking but for all, and that the majority of the elected representatives of the people have, in authorizing the imposition of the restrictions, considered them to be reasonable.”