No organ of state should go beyond assigned role: Somnath Chatterjee

Voicing concern over 'judicial activism', former Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee today said no organ of the state should go beyond the role assigned to it by the Constitution.

"We must recognise that the Constitution is supreme law and no organ of state should go beyond the role assigned to it by the Constitution. It is the duty of all concerned, including the legislature, the executive and the judiciary to ensure that this balance is scrupulously adhered to. No organ can be the substitute of another," he said.

Noting there were umpteen instances where the judiciary intervened in the executive, he said the most recent instance was Supreme Court's direction to Centre for providing free foodgrains to poor, prompting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to remind it that it should not deal with policy decisions.

Delivering a lecture on 'The role of parliamentary democracy and the judiciary', he claimed a section of the judiciary seemed to be of the view that it had the authority by way of 'judicial activism' to exercise powers earmarked by the Constitution for the legislative or the executive.

"Our Constitution contemplates judicial review and not judicial activism which is of recent coinage and extends, one finds, much beyond review," he said. 

"What are the constitutional and legal sanctions behind such orders made and directions given by courts, by way of judicial activism?" 

Citing the Jagadambika Pal case of 1998, involving the Uttar Pradesh assembly, and the Jharkhand Assembly case of 2005, Chatterjee held that these were "two glaring examples of deviations" from the clearly provided constitutional scheme
of separation of powers.

"The interim order of the Supreme Court in these two cases, to my mind, upset the delicate constitutional balance between the judiciary and the legislature".

Admitting that there was some cynicism about the way of functioning of Parliament, the legislative assemblies and the executive, he said, "Many a time the judiciary is applauded for its interventions in forcing the arm of the executive to do certain things or in restraining it from doing certain things. People appreciate it, at least, that is what the media reports."

Chatterjee said there were serious implications of the judiciary taking 'onerous responsibility' of the governance of the country in a parliamentary democracy which the Constitution has imposed on either the executive or legislature.

"The delay in our criminal justice system is particularly of gravest concern and there is growing feeling among the people that dispensation of justice can be affected or frustrated by people of means and of questionable integrity," he said.

Stating that some solutions were sought to be found by setting up fast track courts or by adoption of alternate disputes redressal machinery, he said "but in my humble experience, to these efforts the resistance has come more from within the legal fraternity than otherwise."