The Supreme Court is being charged with judicial despotism. Comment.
The Supreme Court is being charged with judicial despotism. Comment.
The dialectics of judicial activism alone will explain its dynamic advance in the Indian jurisdic universe. When the executive betrays the people, viewed in the light of constitutional promises, there are two corrective agencies. The first is Parliament, which has the constitutional authority to correct the executive.
But if Parliament, because of the arithmetical deficiency of the Opposition and the majority arrogance of the Treasury benches, wobbles or stands paralysed, there is a jurisprudential vacuum. In such a situation of vacuum, some constitutional machinery must move into action.
Isn't the judiciary usurping administrative functions?
On the whole, judicial activism has been rather more than insistence on the imperatives the Constitution expects. That is why you can never call it judicial invasion of the executive power. Had the executive been more responsive and responsible, the court would have hesitated to tread territory which does not normally belong to it.
Do you see the possibility of a confrontation between the judiciary and the executive?
There is no possibility in the given situation of an open confrontation between the executive and the judiciary. On the other hand, the nation as a whole sighs with relief that there is some authority which promotes accountability to the Constitution by those in pro tem power.
What distinguishes the current phase of judicial activism from that when you were chief justice?
I don't think the court is doing anything more controversial or notorious now than when I was on the bench. It is the circumstances of each period that justify the kind of action that is taken.
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