Judicial activism to be reversed?
The Supreme Court under the new regime of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia on Monday gave enough indication about reversing the much perceived notion about “judicial activism” making it clear that it will not use its powers under Article 32 of the Constitution to “interfere unnecessarily” in the policy decisions of the government.
Not only this, a bench comprising CJI Kapadia and Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar went a step further to say that even in the matters of “governance” the court would not act merely on “media reports”.
If any person had any grievance against the authorities, he first should approach them and come to the court if his problem is not addressed to.
“We make it clear that we will not entertain any petition on the policy matters. In matters of policy we are not going to interfere as it has serious implications,” said the CJI while dismissing at least eight old and new PILs raising a variety of issues.
Some of the petition certainly raised issues, which were simply administrative such as stopping road accidents and building of toilets in public places.
Referring to such PILs, the bench said these matters related to the governance and fell in the domain of the executive.
Regarding a petition on dual citizenship and voting right to NRIs, the top court said this was essentially a legislative matter.
The government has conceived a bill on the issue and it is for Parliament to pass it. “How can we issue a direction to Parliament?” the CJI asked.
The bench made it clear that the provision of Article 32 for filing writ petition directly in the Supreme Court has been made only to ensure that when there is violation of any law and rules, the citizen have a remedy through a court mandamus.
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