Email this article 
JUDICIAL ACTIVISM IN INDIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM
Abstract
Judiciary is the important organ of each Government in modern age. Every constitution gives the vast powers to review the process of law was making and executive orders. It is hoped that the Judiciary will act as free and fair in the light of constitutional provisions. As far as Indian context the Judiciary, these days, has been playing a vast role in day-to-day works of Govt. There are two kinds of exercise this powers as Judicial self-restraint and Judicial activism. Judicial self – restraint is the classical or traditional virtue of judicial behavior. The courts will be very careful in defining their jurisdiction and shy in expanding it and will observe restraint in interfering with legislative or executive action. However judicial self-restraint is not a rule, it is a case of auto limitation. But judicial activism can be both- negative and positive. In times of political instability the court tend to be more activist reaching more abstrusely into the daily life of citizens or restricting or directing the legislature and the executive in what they could do. So, this paper will reveal the too activism of the judiciary in Indian context.
Article visualizations:
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
AIR 1960 SC 845, AIR 1979 SC 478, AIR 1994 SC 360, AIR 1979 SC 916, AIR 1981 SC 713- 14, AIR 1981 SC 2138, AIR 1981 SC 344, AIR 1982 SC 149, AIR 1987 SC 1086, AIR 1984 SC 828, AIR 1983 SC 378, AIR 1985 SC 1259, AIR 1987 SC 359, AIR 1987 SC 1326, AIR 1981 SC 939, AIR 1983 SC 930, AIR 1979 SC 1590, 1360, 1770, 1819, AIR 1981 SC 1928, AIR 1981 SC 1939, AIR 1983 SC 1087, AIR 1982 SC 806, AIR 1986 SC 1773, AIR 1983 SC 328, AIR 1983 SC 308, AIR 1983 SC 378, AIR 1984 SC 837, AIR 1984 SC 837.
Azad Rickshaw Pullers’ Union, Amritsar vs. State of Punjab, AIR 1981 SC 15
Azad Rickshaw Pullers’ Union Case, AIR 1981 SC 15.
B.B. Lyer, The Court Rules, Pioneer, Lucknow, 23 January 1996.
Banbasi Sewa Ashram vs. State of U.P., AIR 1987, SC 374.
Bandhua Mukti Morcha vs. Union of India, AIR 1984 SC 837.
Cardozo, B. The Nature of the Judicial Process, Yale University Press, New Heaven, 1921, p. 168.
Chief Justice Ahmadi inaugurating a Seminar at Pune on judicial process- social legitimacy and institutional validity said that there are situations in which people wait for some action. (Hindustan Times, New Delhi, 8 July, 1996).
Desai, D.A. Inaugural speech at the All India Lawyers’ Seminar at Allahabad dated 10 April, 1982.
Frontline, January 11-24, 1986, Pp. 10-12.
Glazer, Nathan and Kristol, Irving, The American Commonwealth, New York, 1976.
Hindustan Times: New Delhi, 20 March, 1985, 11 April, 1985, 10 April, 1996, 12 Aril, 1996, 8 July, 1996, 16 Dec., 1996, 19 Oct., 1998.
In a telegram, a village woman Konikamma sought the court’s help in getting her son Mirampal, freed from the Konda village police station in Prakasam district. The Additional Advocate General received the court notice on the government’s behalf. Times of India, July 17, 1985.
Khalap, R.K., former Union Law Minister told the Rajya Sabha in July 1996, that there was a backlog of about 25 million cases before various courts in the country. Allahabad High Court had arrears of 8 lakhs, Madras 3.20 lakhs and Calcutta 2.55 lakhs. The total number of cases pending in the District and subordinate courts in Delhi was 572903. (Pioneer, Lucknow, 20 October, 1996). In a judgment delivered by the case Siddharth Kumar Vs. Upper Civil Judge, the Allahabad High Court noted that there were 9.25 lakh civil cases pending in the courts of U.P. Out of these about 3 lakh are 1-3 years old, about 2.5 lakh are 3-10 years old, possibly including those embroiling succeeding generations in litigation started by ancestors. Clogged Courts: cases backlog can be cleared. (Times of India, New Delhi 12 August, 1988, P. 13).
Kirby Michael: Judicial Activism: Authority Principle and Policy in the Judicial Method, 2004.
K.F. Rustomji, “Agony of Under-trials”, Indian Express, ¾ January 1981. Rustomji pointed out that 700 out of 1000 inmates of the Muzaffarur jail were under-trials. 42 of them were waiting for their trial to commence for more than 5 years. These under trials have been in jail for a period that exceeds the period of sentence if convicted. There were people who kept in protective custody so that they might be readily available as witnesses. After five years of procrastination, the CBI on Jaunary 16, 1996 filed charge sheets against 7 politicians, namely, L.K. Advani, Devi Lal, Arjun Singh, Arif Mohammad Khan, Kalpnath Rai, Yashwant Sinha and Devilal’s grandnephew, Pradeep Kumar, and sought permission from the President of India to proceed against three Central Ministers, Madhavrao Scindia, Balram Jakhar and V.C. Shukla.
Laski, Harold J., Parliamentary Government in England, Allen & Unwin, London, 1952, P. 360-362.
Lochner vs. New York, 198, U.S. 45 (1905).
M.C. Mehta vs. Union of India, commonly known as Shriram Fertilizers case, AIR 1986 SC 955.
Neeraj Chaudhary vs. State of M.P., AIR 1981 SC 1099.
Olga Tellis vs. Bombay Municipal Corporation, 1985 SC 545.
Osborne vs. Bank of United States, 8 Wheat 738, 866.
P.D. Mathew, “Babubigha scheduled caste people show the way” Struggle for Justice Series, Indian Social Institute, New Delhi, 1986.
Pioneer, Lucknow, 13 Nov., 1995, 28 Nov., 1995, 23 Jan., 1996, 19 Aug., 1996, 28 Aug., 1996, 29 Aug., 1996, 31 Aug., 1996, 14 Oct., 1996, 30 Oct., 1996, 10 Jan., 1997, 29 Aug., 1998.
“PIL Gains Momentum” by M.C. Mehta Legal News and Views, I (11) 1987, pp. 3-4.
PUDR vs. State of Bihar, AIR 1987 SC 355.
Rudal Shah vs. State of Bihar, AIR 1983 SC 1087.
Rudal Shah vs. State of Bihar, AIR 1983 SC 1086.
Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra Vs. State of U.P. AIR 1985 SC 1259, AIR 1987 SC 359.
Statesman, New Delhi, January 7/8 and 9/10, 1988, 8 July, 1988.
State of West Bengal vs. Sampat lal, AIR 1985 SC 374.
State of Haryana vs. Darshana Devi, AIR 1979 SC 855.
State of Kerala vs. P.T. Roshana, AIR 1979 SC 766.
Sharma, R.D.: Justice for All, said, “The sudden probation for the PIL bill was the spate of judgements by the apex court in the allotment of petrol pumps case, Jain Hawala cases, housing scam and others of the ilk dealing with corruption in high places. (Pioneer, Lucknow, 2.4.1997). The court had received a pamphlet from Shanti of Karnataka who alleged that she was employed without any payment as domestic servant and washerwoman by a flour mill owner in Tirupati. The court called for a report from the Chittor Collector. Times of India, 17 July 1985.
Times of India, New Delhi, 20 March, 1996, 24 March, 1996, 8 Feb., 1998, 18 Aug., 1998, 17 Sept., 1998.
Upendra Baxi vs. State of U.P., AIR 1987 SC 1991. Venkataramaiah, the former chief Justice of the Supreme Court, expresses his observations the same. observations express this same concern. He said, “If the legislature exceeds its power, this court steps in. If this court itself exceeds its powers what can people do? Should they be driven to seek an amendment of the law on every such occasion. The only proper solution is the observance of restraint by this court in its pronouncements so that they do not go beyond its own legitimate sphere”. (Pioneer, Lucknow, 4 September 1996).
Venugopal K.K., Senior Advocate emphasizes, “The court has to be more cautious where it seeks to take affirmative action in areas not covered by statute or express constitutional provisions requiring a particular thing to be done or action to be taken” In his view, this implies that the court “would be taking upon itself the function of laying down policy. It would also encroach upon the legislative powers of parliament or the state legislatures” (Pioneer, Lucknow, November 13, 1995).
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejpss.v0i0.467
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
Copyright (c) 2018 Shiw Balak Prasad
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The research works published in this journal are free to be accessed. They can be shared (copied and redistributed in any medium or format) and\or adapted (remixed, transformed, and built upon the material for any purpose, commercially and\or not commercially) under the following terms: attribution (appropriate credit must be given indicating original authors, research work name and publication name mentioning if changes were made) and without adding additional restrictions (without restricting others from doing anything the actual license permits). Authors retain the full copyright of their published research works and cannot revoke these freedoms as long as the license terms are followed.
Copyright © 2017 - 2023. European Journal Of Political Science Studies (ISSN 2601-2766) is a registered trademark. All rights reserved.
This journal is a serial publication uniquely identified by an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) serial number certificate issued by Romanian National Library. All the research works are uniquely identified by a CrossRef DOI digital object identifier supplied by indexing and repository platforms. All the research works published on this journal are meeting the Open Access Publishing requirements and standards formulated by Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002), the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (2003) and Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2003) and can be freely accessed, shared, modified, distributed and used in educational, commercial and non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Copyrights of the published research works are retained by authors.
