FEDERATION VERSUS FREEDOM 309
Federated State is also a unit. This is a most extraordinary feature of this Indian Federation and also one of its worst features. One of the results of a Federation, if not its primary object, has been the freedom of trade and commerce inside the territory of the Federation. There is no federation known to history which has permitted one unit of the Federation to levy customs duties or raise other barriers with a view to prevent inter-State commerce. The Indian Federation is an exception to that rule and this is a feature of the Indian Federation which makes it stand out in glaring contrast with other federations with which people are familiar today.
One of the characteristics of a Federal Constitution is that although the territory comprised in the Federation is distributed or held by different units, still they constitute one single territory. At any rate for customs purposes the territory is treated as a single unit. Every Federal Constitution contains powers and prohibitions to prevent trade and customs barriers being erected by one unit against another.
The American constitution by Section 9 of Article II prohibits a State from preventing the import or export of goods or from levying import or export duties upon goods passing in or out of the State boundary. Section 8( 3 ) of Article II gives the Federal Government the power of regulating trade or commerce between the States of the Union.
In Australia by virtue of Section 92 of its Constitution both the States and the Federal Government are bound so to exercise their power of regulation as not to transgress the fundamental guarantee of the Constitution embodied in Section 92 that “trade and commerce among the States whether by means of internal carriage or ocean navigation shall be absolutely free”.
In Canada section 121 enacts that “all articles of the growth, produce or manufacture of any one Province shall, from and after the Union, be admitted free into each of the other Provinces.”
In the Indian Constitution the provision relating to freedom of trade and commerce within the Federation is contained in Section 297. It reads as follows :
“297. (1) No Provincial Legislature or Government shall—
( a ) by virtue of the entry in the Provincial Legislative List relating to trade and commerce within the Province, or the entry in that list relating to the production, supply, and distribution of commodities, have power to pass any law or take any executive action prohibiting or restricting the entry into, or export from, the Province of goods of any class or description ; or
( b ) by virtue of anything in this Act have power to impose any tax, cess, toll, or due which, as between goods manufactured or produced in the Province and similar goods not so manufactured or produced, discriminates in favour of the former, or which, in the case of goods manufactured or produced outside the Province, discriminates between