Source - Livelaw.in
The supreme court reiterated the importance of Article 32 of the Constitution of India in a judgment delivered on Thursday, 3 Dec. Article 32 is an important and integral part of the basic structure of the Constitution. Article 32 is meant to ensure observance of rule of law, provides for the enforcement of fundamental rights, which is most potent weapon - observed a bench comprising Justices Ashok Bhushan, R Subhash Reddy and MR Shah. These significant observations were made in the judgement in the case Skill Loto Solutions Pvt Ltd vs Union of India.
The petitioner had filed a writ petition under article 32 of the Constitution challenging the constitutionality of the levy of GST on Lotteries. An objection was raised by the Union of India regarding the maintainability of the writ Petition. This was turned down by the bench observing that the petitioner was alleging violation of fundamental rights and therefore the petition was maintainable. Article 32 confers a right to move to the supreme Court for enforcement of rights conferred by the part 3 , the Court observed.
The judgement also quoted the statement made by Dr B R Ambedkar in the constituent assembly about Article 32 as follows:
“If it was asked to name of any particular Article in the Constitution as most important... An article without which the Constitution would be nullity... I could not refer, to any other article except this one. It is the very soul of the Constitution and the very heart of it.”
The court observed that a writ petition alleging the violation of Article 14 specially with respect to a parliamentary Act can very well be entertained under Article 32. While the court held the writ to be maintainable, it did not accept the contentions of the Petitioner on merits and upheld the levy of GST on lotteries, betting and gambling.