Anwar Ali Sarkar v State of West Bengal

• The West Bengal Special Courts Act, 1950 empowered the State Government to refer any case or class of cases to Special Courts
• Special Courts followed a different (faster) procedure without commitment proceedings or jury trial available in regular Sessions Courts
• The petitioner challenged the Act as violating Art.14 since it gave the State unfettered discretion to pick which cases would go to Special Courts

1. Whether a law creating special courts with different procedure, without intelligible differentia for selection of cases, violates Art.14.
2. Whether denial of normal procedural safeguards (commitment, jury) amounts to discrimination.

• The Act violated Art.14 because it provided no intelligible differentia between cases tried by Special Courts and those tried by ordinary courts
• The classification was left entirely to the unfettered discretion of the State Government, with no objective standard
• Procedure is a substantial right; denial of normal procedural safeguards is a form of discrimination
• A law that permits the executive to single out individuals or cases for different treatment without a rational basis offends the equal protection guarantee
• However, special courts per se are not unconstitutional; only the absence of rational classification makes them so

Art.14 requires that any classification for differential treatment must be founded on intelligible differentia having a rational nexus with the object of the legislation. Where the State has unguided discretion to pick cases for special treatment, the law fails the Art.14 test.