New Delhi: In a judgement that significantly reinforces the doctrine of manifest arbitrariness as a check on legislative power, the Supreme Court on March 10 struck down a Bihar law that had sought to acquire and nationalise a century-old library and research institute in Patna, founded by Sachchidanand Sinha, the first Interim President of the Constituent Assembly. The court held that the Srimati Radhika Sinha Institute and Sachchidananda Sinha Library (Requisition and Management) Act, 2015, was manifestly arbitrary and violated Article 14 of the constitution. It has ordered restoration of the trust governing the institution to its legal position before the law was passed.A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta found that the Bihar legislature had deployed the most extreme measure available – complete vesting of the institution in the state and dissolution of its trust arrangements – without placing on record a single communication to the trustees alleging mismanagement, financial irregularity or failure of purpose.The court’s examination of the original legislative record revealed a telling absence: no inquiry had preceded the Act, no notice had been issued and no reasons were given to the people whose long-standing rights were extinguished.The institution at the centre of the dispute is no ordinary library. The Institute and Library was established in 1924 by Sachchidanand Sinha, a distinguished public figure, in memory of his wife, Radhika Sinha. He contributed Rs 50,000 from the sale proceeds of ancestral property belonging to Radhika Sinha and donated around 10,000 volumes from his personal collection to the institution. He set up a trust in 1926, with the Chief Justice of the Patna High Court as the ex-officio trustee. The institution functioned continuously for over a century.The appellant before the court, Anurag Krishna Sinha, is Sachchidananda Sinha’s great-grandson and the current trustee, honorary secretary and Chief Executive Officer of the institute.Founding members and others associated with the library, which has a long and storied past. Photo: sinhalibrary.inThe 2015 Act had sought to vest all rights, titles and interests in the institute in the state government under Section 3, and simultaneously dissolve the trust deed, the 1955 agreement with the state, the lease arrangements and all of its committees under Section 4(2). The compensation provision, contained in Section 7, permitted the state to pay a maximum of one rupee. The Patna High Court, in a February 2024 ruling, had dismissed the challenge, including the novel step of holding – with neither party arguing the point – that the trust was a public rather than a private trust. The Supreme Court found this approach procedurally flawed, noting that a court cannot decide a matter on an entirely different basis from what was argued without affording the parties an opportunity to address it.The court, however, did not itself resolve whether the trust is public or private, finding that question unnecessary to the constitutional determination.On the constitutional merits, the court traced the doctrine of manifest arbitrariness across a long arc of authority: from S.G. Jaisinghani v Union of India (1967), where a Constitution Bench identified the absence of arbitrary power as the first essential of the rule of law, through E.P. Royappa v State of Tamil Nadu (1974), where arbitrariness was recognised as a distinct facet of Article 14, to Maneka Gandhi v Union of India (1978), Ajay Hasia v Khalid Mujib (1981) and Indian Express Newspapers v Union of India (1985).The decisive modern authority was Shayara Bano v Union of India (2017), where a Constitution Bench settled the long-running controversy by holding that manifest arbitrariness – something done by the legislature capriciously, irrationally and without adequate determining principle – is a valid ground to strike down legislation under Article 14. The court, in the present judgement confirmed that this position has since been reinforced in Joseph Shine v Union of India (2018), which struck down the adultery provision in the Indian Penal Code, and in Association for Democratic Reforms v Union of India (2024), also known as the electoral bonds case.Applied to the facts, the court identified several compounding features of arbitrariness. First, there was a complete absence of necessity: no finding of abandonment, no established mismanagement, no prior inquiry and no lesser measure attempted before the legislature reached for outright acquisition. The court noted that grants-in-aid, conditional funding, statutory audit and supervisory oversight were all available mechanisms that would have served the stated purpose without displacing existing management. That the legislature chose the most extreme option when less invasive alternatives were plainly at hand was itself a manifestation of arbitrariness.Second, and particularly sharp in its logic, the court pointed to an inconsistency in the state’s own case. Under the arrangement governing the institution, the State Librarian served as ex-officio Chief Librarian, bearing responsibility for the general supervision of the library’s working and administration – though this was subject to the overall direction of the Trustees. The court’s point was precise: the state could not invoke mismanagement as its justification for a complete legislative takeover when it had declined to take any action against its own appointee, who was charged with general administration of the very institution whose management it now sought to impugn. The record showed no inquiry against the State Librarian, no notice issued, and no action taken.Third, the court addressed the state’s post-enactment investment of over Rs 72 crore in renovation and infrastructure, observing that while this reflected a genuine commitment to the institution’s preservation, it did not validate the acquisition. The scale of investment demonstrated, if anything, that the state’s objective could have been achieved through far less drastic means.The court also drew on the legislative history. In 1983, Bihar had promulgated ordinances seeking to acquire the same institution. Those ordinances were challenged before the Patna High Court, eventually lapsed, and their effect was set aside by the Supreme Court in 1996. The 2015 Act, more than three decades later, sought to achieve substantially the same outcome without any intervening change in circumstances or fresh material justifying acquisition. The mere passage of time, the court held, does not supply a justification. When a legislature re-enacts a failed measure without cogent new material, that legislative history becomes a relevant consideration in assessing the validity of the Act.The one-rupee compensation provision under Section 7 drew separate censure. While Article 300A of the constitution permits deprivation of property by authority of law, such law must be just, fair and reasonable. A provision that vests unguided discretion in the legislature and reduces compensation to a nominal and illusory figure lacks the basic attributes of fairness. Its confiscatory character reinforced the court’s finding of manifest arbitrariness.After these findings, the court found it unnecessary to rule on the appellant’s further contentions regarding legislative competence and repugnancy under the Concurrent List, including the question of whether the Bihar law infringed upon the Indian Trusts Act, 1882.The judgement sets aside the Patna High Court’s order of February 29, 2024 and declares the 2015 Act unconstitutional. The rights of management and administration of the trust are returned to the trustees, while the court expressly preserved the state’s ability to provide financial assistance, administrative support or regulatory oversight in accordance with law. This was a reminder that a choice exists between engagement and annexation – and that the constitution requires the former before the latter can be attempted.