Public Enterprises as State and Article 12

The legal view that public enterprises are 'state' virtually destroys the difference between departmental and corporate public enterprises, and renders the corporate form otiose for all practical purposes, weakens the managements of public enterprises vis-a-vis their employees and unscrupulous tenderers and suppliers, and gravely undermines discipline as well as enterprise-like behaviour, provides no special protection to the consumer against monopolist behaviour or restrictive trade practices, for which other remedies have to be found and undermines an important instrument of policy and strategy in developmental planning and virtually presents the government with only two choices, namely, to establish departmental undertakings or to leave matters to the private sector This clearly represents the most serious threat to the continuance of the public enterprise experiment in this country.