Doctrine of Covering Th Filed

The doctrine of covering the field is a doctrine in constitutional theory that applies in federal constitutions where legislative powers are shared between the federal government and the federating states in Enumerated Lists. It applies only to legislative acts (statutes) made by the federal and state legislatures under the Concurrent Legislative List. In the US, the expression, covering the same ground, was used in Houston v Moore 18 US 1 (1820). The doctrine simply means that where there is a conflict between the legislation of a state and the federal parliament on a matter in the concurrent legislative list, an inconsistency arises, and as between the two laws so passed, the one passed by the federal parliament federal parliament prevails and that of the state is rendered inoperative during the lifetime of the federal law. The reasoning behind the doctrine is that:-

(1) It would be too inappropriate of a lower legislative body to legislate on the same subject matter as covered by the higher legislative body and

(2) To subject a citizen to obedience to two laws at the same time on the same subject will be too oppressive. The basic foundation of the doctrine is that acts of the federal government in a federal system of government bind the states and their agencies as representing separate segments of the federation within the limits of the enumerated powers, in Clyde Engineering Co Ltd v Cowburn (1926) 37 CLR 466, where a federal Act had made provisions on hours of work and a state entered upon the same field to make its own provisions, the High Court of Australia held the state law inoperative.
How does the doctrine actually operate in practice? We will consider how the doctrine works in the following aspect:-

Federal Exhaustion, Exclusive & Complete Coverage It is not always the case that at any time a federal and a state law exist the doctrine applies. There must be an intention in the federal law to completely and exhaustively cover the field and not