The meaning given to rag-bag legislation by the Supreme Court, and later followed by several High Courts, is conceptually quite different from how it originated in the United Kingdom. It is best to start with the dictionary meaning of ‘rag-bag’. The New Oxford Dictionary of English defines “rag-bag” as “a bag in which scraps of fabric and old clothes are kept for use”. The dictionary mentions that it is also used to explain a miscellaneous collection of things and the illustration given is “a rag-bag of reforms are now being discussed”.

In the UK, it was used to describe consolidation Acts which attempted to codify or combine various offences or actions of a disparate nature into one statute. In R v. Brown, (1994) 1 A.C. 212, the Offences against the Person Act, 1861 was described by Lord Lowry as a “laudable but untidy Victorian attempt” to codify different areas of law. The great Sir James Fitzjames Stephen called such laws as obscure, lengthy and cumbrous. Others criticised this 1861 law as a piecemeal legislation, as a “rag-bag of offences brought together from a wide variety of sources with no attempt, as the draftsman frankly acknowledged, to introduce consistency as to substance or as to form”.

The Sexual Offences Act, 1956 was also a consolidation Act which merely grouped together various categories of sexual offences, leading to lacunae and anomalies. This law was also criticized by English courts as being a rag-bag law whose provisions were derived from diverse resources, and as being a patch-work of pre-existing offences that did not form a coherent code. Similar criticism of rag-bag laws are not cited for the sake of brevity.

In Re State v. Walters, ex. p. Minister of Safety and Security, (2003) 1 LRC 493, 513-514, the South African Constitutional Court also criticised a Schedule in their criminal law which included a divergent rag-bag of more than 20 offences which varied from serious crimes like treason, murder, rape on one end of the spectrum to relatively petty offences like pickpocketing, or grabbing fruit from a fruit stall.

Thus, a rag-bag legislation is a label given to a badly drafted law which includes disparate subject matters into one statute. It is the duty of the draftsman to avoid rag-bag legislation. However, a State legislature may choose to enact one compendious amendment Act amending various State laws in distinct chapters of one Act. Such a statute would hardly be a rag-bag legislation.

In this background, the Supreme Court of India and the High Courts have repeatedly fallen into a conceptual error while classifying a law as a rag-bag legislation. The error begins with Ujagar Prints v. Union of India, AIR 1989 SC 516, 530. The Supreme Court rightly pointed out that if a law purports to be under a particular legislative entry and is assailed for legislative competence, the State can always seek to support it on the basis of any other entry that is  within the legislative competence of that legislature. But the court erroneously went on to hold that a legislation could be a composite legislation, drawing upon several entries in a list in Schedule VII, and termed these as “rag-bag legislation, which are particularly familiar in taxation”. A reference was made to Bennion who called the Annual Finance Act as an extreme example of rag-bag Acts as they covered excise duty, VAT, income-tax and so on. It is submitted that even the definition given by Bennion is incorrect in the Indian content. A Finance Act is based, under the Indian Constitution, on a Finance Bill. If various sections of a Finance Act deal with different taxes and subjects mentioned in Article 110, it will not be a rag-bag legislation. Such a Finance Act has a coherent structure, and is usually presented at the time of the Budget.

The Ujagar Prints decision is also incorrect because a legislation does not become rag-bag because it is ostensibly made with reference to one legislative entry but can actually be supported by another entry. Such a legislation has only one subject matter, but its validity can be justified on the basis of another entry. This view has been followed in at least six High Court cases but  none of them have dealt conceptually with a rag-bag law.

It is submitted that the rag-bag label was once again wrongly applied in Kihoto Hollohan vs. Zachillhu, AIR 1993 SC 412, 440 and was used in the context of the doctrine of severability. Article 368 requires certain amendments to additionally require ratification by not less than half the States. If a single Constitution Amendment Act includes amendments which required ratification and those which do not, it was rightly held that the doctrine of severability would apply. Parliament could validly proceed to make amendments that did not require States’ ratification. However, those sections of the Amendment Act which require ratification by States could not be validly passed by Parliament alone. However, the error that was committed was to call such a composite Bill as a “rag-bag measure”. Rag-bag legislations have nothing to do with a constitutional amendment that has valid and invalid provisions.

In Jindal Stainless Steel Ltd. vs. State of Haryana, (2017) 12 SCC 1, 478, reference was made to rag-bag legislation in a concurring opinion. It was held that it is not necessary for a State legislature to pass separate laws for each subject matter; a law imposing a fiscal levy can cover more than one legislation falling within its legislative competence. Such a law was treated as a “rag-bag legislation” and held to be constitutionally permissible. It was held that a single enactment can draw sustenance from more than one entry.

It is incorrect to state that a rag-bag legislation is “constitutionally permissible”. The correct view is that a rag-bag legislation, containing different subject matters will be valid , if each of them is within the legislative competence of that legislature.

Finally, in Union of India v. VKC Footsteps (India) Pvt. Ltd., (2022) 2 SCC 603, 651, the word ‘rag-bag legislation’ was used to denote statutes wherein the tax could come under the residuary Entry of the Union List viz. Entry 97. If a tax is not mentioned either in List I or List II, it can always be levied under Entry 97. But, this has got nothing to do with rag-bag legislation.

It is submitted that the principles relating to rag-bag legislation are as follows:

i. Rag-bag laws are those which combine various matters of a disparate nature. These laws lack coherence and usually result in confusion.

ii. A statutory law purporting to be under Entry ‘X’, but can be actually justified only  under Entry ‘Y’ is not a rag-bag legislation, even though it is still constitutionally valid.

iii. In India, a Finance Act, either at the Centre or any State usually contains several provisions regarding various Union or State taxes. Such a Finance Act is not a rag-bag legislation, as it has a clear purpose, is coherent and usually does not create any confusion.

iv. A rag bag legislation will not be declared unconstitutional merely because it is ‘rag-bag’; its validity will only depend on legislative competence and constitutional limitations.   The label rag-bag only indicates lack of clarity in drafting a law, because it includes different and unconnected matters. A classic example of a rag-bag legislation in India is the PMLA Act, 2002 whose Schedule consists of a mixture of statutory provisions / offences that do not have any coherent pattern. It covers not only offences under the IPC and narcotics, but even relates to intellectual property, biodiversity and wildlife protection!

Arvind P. Datar is a Senior Advocate.

He acknowledges the research assistance of M Jannani, Advocate, Madras High Court.