Inter-state Trade and Commerce (Part-XIII)

A truck of onions leaves Nashik for Surat. At the Gujarat border, should a check post be able to stop it, or charge it more than the local onions pay? If every State could do that, India would behave like a set of small countries with customs walls between them. Part XIII of the Constitution was written to prevent exactly this. It declares trade free across the whole country, and then spells out, article by article, who may restrict it, for what reason, and with whose permission.

In two minutes

Art. 301 declares trade, commerce and intercourse free throughout India; Arts. 302 to 305 and 307 then say how far Parliament and the States may restrict that freedom, and the courts decide whether a tax or regulation is a restriction on the freedom at all.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Constitutional Law – II on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.