procedure laid down in that Article. An ordinary law can be passed by it only
after amending the provisions of the Constitution authorizing it to do so.
328. If the basic postulate that a sovereign can act only by enacting laws
is correct, then that is a limitation upon his power to do anything he likes. If I
may re-phrase the classical statement of Sir Owen Dixon: the law that a
sovereign can act only by law is supreme but as to what may be done by a law
so made, the sovereign is supreme over that law.* Of course, this is subject to
the theory of basic structure. In other words, even though a sovereign can act
only by making law, the law he so makes may vest the authority to exercise
judicial power in himself: without such law he cannot exercise judicial power.
329. The result of the discussion can be summed up as follows: Our
Constitution, by Article 329(b) visualizes the resolution of an election dispute
on the basis of a petition presented to such authority and in such manner as
the appropriate legislature may, by law, provide. The nature of the dispute
raised in an election petition is such that it cannot be resolved except by
judicial process, namely, by ascertaining the facts relating to the election and
applying the pre-existing law; when the amending body held that the election
of the appellant was valid, it could not have done so except by ascertaining
the facts by judicial process and by applying the law. The result of this
process would not be the enactment of constitutional law but the passing of a
judgment or sentence. The amending body, though possessed of judicial
power,had no competence to exercise it, unless it passed a constitutional law
enabling it to do so. If however, the decision of the amending body to hold the
election of the appellant valid was the result of the exercise of an
'irresponsible despotic discretion' governed solely by what it deemed political
necessity or expediency, then like a bill of attainder, it was a legislative
judgement disposing of a particular election dispute and not the enactment of
a law resulting in an amendment of the Constitution. And, even if the latter
process (the exercise of despotic discretion) could be regarded as an
amendment of the Constitution, the amendment would damage or destroy an
essential feature of democracy as established by the Constitution, namely,
the resolution of election dispute by an authority by the exercise of judicial
power by as-certaining the adjudicative facts and applying the relevant law
for determining the real representative of the people. The lecision of the
amending body cannot be regarded as an exercise in constituent legislative
validation of an election for these reasons: firstly there can be no legislative
validation of an election when there is dispute between the parties as regards
the adjudicative facts; the amending body cannot gather these facts by
employing legislative process: they can be gathered only by judicial process.
Secondly, the amending body must change the law retrospectively so as to
make the election valid, if the election was rendered invalid by virtue of any
provision of the law actually existing at the time of election: Art 368 does not
confer on the amending body the competence to pass any ordinary law
whether with or with out retrospective effect. Clause (4) expressly excluded
the operation of all laws relating to election petition to the election in
question. Therefore, the election was held to be valid not by changing the law
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