In Brief
After Telangana's formation in 2014, the State amended agricultural market committee provisions, reducing the tenure from 3 years to 1 year with retrospective effect, and changing members' status from 'appointed' to 'nominated'. Market committee members challenged this as discriminatory and violating their vested rights. The Supreme Court upheld the amendments, holding that: (1) a new State legislature can enact retrospective laws within constitutional limits; (2) amending a statute to cure defects identified by courts does not usurp judicial power; (3) changing 'appointment' to 'nomination' retrospectively does not violate vested rights, as these were not service positions but representative roles; and (4) comparing market committees to special market committees does not engage Article 14 since they serve different purposes.", "principles">["A State legislature formed after reorganization has competence to legislate retrospectively on subject-matters in its domain, including for periods before the State's existence", "Retrospective amendment of a statute to remove a constitutional defect identified by courts does not constitute a reversal or overruling of the judicial decision but rather a legitimate legislative exercise of amending the substantive law", "A legislature can retrospectively change the nature or character of an appointment by substituting terminology (e.g., 'appointed' to 'nominated') and thereby alter the legal consequences, provided procedural safeguards for removal are preserved", "The doctrine of colourable legislation is concerned only with legislative competence, not with the bona fides or mala fides of the legislature", "Vested rights do not attach to positions created by nomination rather than election or merit-based selection, particularly where the legislature has plenary power to restructure the framework", "Article 14 does not apply to a comparison of fundamentally different categories of committees whose compositions, functions and purposes are distinct"]
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