"[1]Article 14 guarantees equality to all persons[a], including citizens, corporations, and foreigners.
[3][4][5] Its provisions have come up for discussion in the Supreme Court in a number of cases and the case of Ram Krishna Dalmia vs Justice S R Tendolkar reiterated its meaning and scope as follows.
Article 14 permits classification, so long as it is 'reasonable', but forbids class legislation.
[7][8] Supreme Court in E. P. Royappa (1973) provided guidance on arbitrariness of an act:"Equality is a dynamic concept with many aspects and dimensions and it cannot be ‘cribbed, cabined and confined’ within the traditional and doctrinaire limits.
From the positivistic point of view, equality is antithetic to arbitrariness.