The Concurrent List: Shared Legislative Powers in Indian Federalism

India’s Constitution faced a basic problem at the moment of its design. Some subjects clearly belonged to the central government, others to the states. But a large category of subjects fell into a grey area, where both levels of government had a legitimate stake. The framers solved this with a clever device: the Concurrent List. It is a list of subjects on which both Parliament and state legislatures can make laws at the same time. This single list shapes how laws on marriage, education, criminal matters, labour, and the environment are made across the country.

What the Concurrent List actually is 🔗

The Concurrent List is List III of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution. The Seventh Schedule divides law-making subjects into three lists. The Union List (List I) covers subjects of national importance such as defence, foreign affairs, and banking, where only Parliament can legislate. The State List (List II) covers regional subjects such as police, public health, and agriculture, where only state legislatures can legislate. The Concurrent List sits in between.

On Concurrent List subjects, both Parliament and state legislatures are empowered to make laws. The list originally contained 47 subjects, and the last entry is still numbered 47, though later amendments added more items so the actual count is higher today. The legal foundation for all of this lies in Articles 245 and 246 of the Constitution, which spell out who can make laws on what.

The word “concurrent” is the key. It means the powers run together rather than being walled off. A subject on this list is not handed to one government alone; it is open to both.

What subjects are on the list 🔗

The Concurrent List groups together subjects that are neither purely national nor purely local. The Sarkaria Commission, which studied Centre-State relations, described these subjects as occupying a constitutional grey area – matters that are not exclusively of national concern, nor exclusively of local concern.

Personal and civil law 🔗

Several subjects relating to personal and everyday legal life sit on the Concurrent List. These include marriage and divorce, succession, transfer of property, contracts, and bankruptcy and insolvency. This is why laws governing how marriages are registered or how an insolvent person’s debts are settled can come from both the central and state level.

Criminal law and procedure 🔗

Criminal law is a Concurrent subject. The first entry on List III deals with criminal law, including matters covered by the country’s penal code. Criminal procedure, preventive detention, and the law relating to courts (except the Supreme Court and High Courts) also fall here.

Labour and welfare 🔗

Subjects such as trade unions, industrial disputes, labour welfare, and social security are on the Concurrent List. This shared power is the reason both the central government and state governments can frame rules about how workers organise and how disputes between employers and employees are settled.

Trade, economy, and the environment 🔗

Economic and social planning, price control, factories, and the protection of forests and wildlife also appear on the list. Electricity and population control and family planning are Concurrent subjects too. The presence of forests and wildlife protection here is significant because these subjects were not always on this list, as we will see below.

How conflicts are resolved: the rule of repugnancy 🔗

When two governments can legislate on the same subject, conflict is almost inevitable. What happens when a central law and a state law on the same Concurrent subject say different things? The Constitution answers this in Article 254.

The general rule is straightforward. If a state law conflicts with a central law on a Concurrent List subject, the central law prevails, and the state law becomes void to the extent of the conflict. Importantly, only the conflicting portion of the state law is struck down, not the entire law. The rest of the state law continues to operate.

This is called the doctrine of repugnancy. The courts have set a high bar for it. In the landmark case M. Karunanidhi v. Union of India (1979), the Supreme Court held that for repugnancy to apply, the conflict between the two laws must be direct and irreconcilable – a situation where it is impossible to obey one law without disobeying the other. If both laws can operate in their own fields without clashing, there is no repugnancy, and both survive.

This rule reflects the larger character of India’s federal system. Because the Union law gets the final say in case of conflict, the system is often described as quasi-federal, with a tilt towards the Centre.

The exception: when state law can prevail 🔗

The rule that central law always wins is not absolute. Article 254 contains an important exception in its second clause. A state can pass a law on a Concurrent subject that conflicts with an existing central law, and that state law can still prevail – but only within that state, and only under one condition.

The condition is that the state law must be reserved for the consideration of the President and must receive the President’s assent. Once it gets that assent, the state law overrides the central law in its application to that particular state.

This exception exists for practical reasons. States sometimes face peculiar local circumstances that a uniform central law cannot address. The exception introduces an element of flexibility, allowing a state to make a law suited to its own conditions even where the Centre has already legislated. It is sometimes described as a constitutional safety valve that balances national uniformity with regional autonomy.

The limit on the exception 🔗

This state power is not permanent. Even after a state law receives Presidential assent and starts to prevail, Parliament keeps the upper hand. Article 254(2) allows Parliament to enact a fresh law on the same subject at any later time – adding to, amending, or repealing the state law. The moment Parliament does so, the central law takes precedence once again. So the state’s victory is conditional and can always be reversed by the Centre.

The Karunanidhi case itself illustrates this exception in action. Tamil Nadu had passed the Public Men (Criminal Misconduct) Act, which received Presidential assent. Because of that assent, the state law was held to prevail in that situation.

How the list has changed over time 🔗

The Concurrent List is not frozen. Subjects can be added to it, usually by moving them from the State List, which expands the Centre’s reach. The most significant change came through the 42nd Amendment Act of 1976, often called the “Mini-Constitution” because of its sweeping changes.

This amendment shifted five subjects from the State List to the Concurrent List: education, forests, weights and measures, protection of wild animals and birds, and the administration of justice (including the organisation of subordinate courts). Before 1976, education and forests were exclusively state subjects. After the amendment, the central government gained the power to legislate on them as well.

This single change had enormous consequences. Because education became a Concurrent subject, central laws such as those governing the right to education and national education policy can now apply across the country. The same logic explains why both central and state governments today frame rules on forest conservation. Moving a subject from the State List to the Concurrent List is a form of centralisation, since it brings the Centre into an area that was previously the states’ exclusive domain.

Why the Concurrent List matters 🔗

The Concurrent List is not found in many federal constitutions. The federal systems of the United States, Switzerland, and Australia do not structure their division of powers in quite the same way. The framers of India’s Constitution borrowed the idea of a concurrent list from the Government of India Act, 1935, and built it into the design deliberately.

Its purpose is to avoid excessive rigidity. A strict two-fold division – everything either national or local – would have been clumsy for a country as varied as India. Many subjects genuinely need attention from both levels of government. The Concurrent List lets the Centre set a common national framework while still allowing states to legislate according to their own needs.

Uniformity with flexibility 🔗

The biggest practical benefit is that the list promotes uniformity in important legal and social matters. When Parliament legislates on a Concurrent subject like criminal law or bankruptcy, the law can apply consistently across states, which is valuable for trade, commerce, and basic legal predictability. At the same time, states retain room to innovate and adapt, since they can legislate on the same subjects as long as they do not clash with central law.

A reflection of cooperative federalism 🔗

The list also embodies the idea of cooperative federalism – the principle that the Centre and the states should work together rather than in isolation. By placing shared subjects in a common pool and providing a clear conflict-resolution rule through Article 254, the Constitution encourages coordination while still preserving a clear hierarchy when disputes arise.

At the same time, critics point out that the list, especially after the 42nd Amendment, reflects a centralising bias. Because the Union law prevails in conflicts and Parliament can always override an assented state law, the balance leans towards the Centre. This is a recurring theme in debates about Indian federalism and the autonomy of states.

What do you think? Does the rule that central law always prevails over state law on Concurrent subjects strike the right balance between national uniformity and state autonomy? And should subjects like education have been moved into the Concurrent List, or were they better left entirely to the states?

References

1. https://www.mea.gov.in/images/pdf1/S7.pdf
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh_Schedule_to_the_Constitution_of_India
3. https://www.drishtijudiciary.com/ttp-constitution-of-india/seventh-schedule
4. https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1930681/
5. https://www.gktoday.in/article-254/
6. https://lawforeverything.com/article-254-of-the-indian-constitution/
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concurrent_List
8. https://byjus.com/free-ias-prep/42nd-amendment-act/
9. https://www.understandupsc.com/concurrent-list-of-indian-constitution/