Now that the Supreme Court of India has reconsidered its earlier judgment in Atiabari Tea Co., Ltd. v. The State of Assam in Automobile Transport (Rajasthan), Ltd. v. State of Rajasthan it would not be inappropriate to attempt a brief critical and analytical account of the two judgments and of the problem of the freedom of trade, commerce and intercourse within the territory of India with which they deal. As will presently appear the task is not easy, first, because the drafting of the articles in Part XIII of the Constitution leaves much to be desired and, secondly, because the wide diversity of judicial opinion disclosed in the Atiabari and the Rajasthan cases does not make the task of the commentator any easier.

Introduction: TheProblems

(1) Whichever is taken as the point of departure, a general principle of liability for injurious acts done intentionally or negligently, or a catalogue of individual protected interests, and whatever the wish to establish criteria of general liability, a comparison between some of the leading systems of the law of the Western World—both civil and common law—shows that it is impossible to get away from the individual situation, irrespective of the force of an existing, or the desire for the creation of, a general principle.