From the resolution of contentious issues regarding distribution of legislative powers by the courts, ‘Principle of Federal Supremacy’ and ‘Harmonious Construction’ have emerged. Explain.

Article 246 read with the Seventh Schedule distributes legislative power between the Union and the States. Since entries inevitably overlap, courts have evolved interpretive doctrines to resolve conflicts — chiefly the principle of federal supremacy and the rule of harmonious construction.

Principle of federal supremacy

• The non obstante clause in Article 246(1) gives Parliament overriding power over the Union List; State power under Article 246(3) is expressly “subject to” the Union and Concurrent Lists.
• Under Article 254, a State law repugnant to a parliamentary law on a Concurrent subject is void to the extent of repugnancy, unless reserved for and assented to by the President under Article 254(2).
• In M/s Hoechst Pharmaceuticals v State of Bihar (1983), the Supreme Court reiterated that where a conflict between entries is irreconcilable, Union legislative power prevails.

Harmonious construction

• Supremacy is a doctrine of last resort: courts first read entries as broad, organic categories and reconcile them so that both legislatures retain their fields.
• In Ch. Tika Ramji v State of UP (1956), central and state sugarcane laws were harmonised as covering different aspects of the same field, defeating the repugnancy challenge.
• In Calcutta Gas Co. v State of West Bengal (1962), the entries on “industries” and “gas and gas-works” were construed so that the specific entry retained meaningful content against the general one.

Together, the two doctrines keep the federal division workable: supremacy secures national primacy in true conflict, while harmonious construction protects state autonomy by avoiding conflict wherever the text permits.