HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF ESSENTIAL COMMODITIES ACT

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 Essential Commodities Act is an Act for the benefit of public at large which basically made rules and regulations with respect to control, production, supply and distribution of certain commodities. This act was recently in news as one of the three farm laws and has been repealed as per the demands of the various farmers all over the country.

Here I would be discussing about how this Act came into being and why. This act was initially imposed during the World War II as a part of the Defence of India Act 1939. The Defence of India Act had inflicted martial law in the whole country. Special Courts were instituted under this Act and it was ruled that there shall be no appeal from the decisions/verdicts of these courts. Everything was in the hands of Central government. They could make any such rules which were considered essential for securing the defence of British India and also could make any rules regarding maintenance of supplies and services expedient to the life of community. During wars there is high probability of people panicking and when there is lack of certain item it may lead to acts of hoarding and black marketing but through this Act everything possible was done so as to ensure that the safety and welfare of the British force, ships, aircrafts etc was not hampered. This Act prevailed from 1939 to 1946. It ended after 6 months the war ended and was later on repealed.

Now India gets independence in the year 1947 and soon after the independence it became one of the largest importers of food grains in the world. India was living in a situation of “ship to mouth”. The food shortage was so acute that the then Prime Minister of the country Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru motivated people to have rotis made of wheat and sweet potato. Another PM Lal Bahadur Shastri appealed to every country member that every Indian should fast far at least a day every week. This was due to the serious shortage the country was facing with respect to our favorite carbohydrates rice and wheat. Additionally it was difficult to secure food from other nations as they were also recovering from the plight of the WWII. By 1960s India had become largest importer of food aid from USA.

So it is with this backdrop that there was felt an acute need for an act like Essential Commodities.

In the newly independent country hoarding, profiteering and black marketing like socio-economic crimes had become rampant as per 29th and 47th Law Commission Report which again highlighted that there is a need for such an Act.

Essential Commodities Act of 1955 was then introduced and implemented in the whole of the country in the interest of public at large with the objective of controlling the production, supply and distribution of essential items. And since then the country had never looked back and has always been self sufficient in catering to the needs of the people at all times.

 

Tanushree Gupta

Asst. Professor

JEMTEC School of Law

 

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