Indian democracy has three pillars in working that are legislature, Executive and Judiciary. The constitution of India grants a power of ‘checks and balances’ to each of them to restrict the other twos in case of overstepping and misusing the powers.

At the same time, the Constitution says that the Parliament is the supreme Institution in India because this is the place where the people’s representatives sit and decide the fate of the nation. The executive is the platform that works as the control room of the legislative.

History says that on several occasions, the Indian judiciary has restricted the legislative and executive if it found that the two other institutions are not performing well or performing with any kind of biasness.

There are countless number of examples of judicial activism in India and the recent one is the Supreme Court’s stay on the OBC quota granted by the government with the approval of Parliament. The court has asked what is the basis for the need of further OBC reservation in the country.

Now the heat is on. The people of India saw the real exchange of words regarding the suggestions of limitation of powers between the head of the executive and the head of Judiciary.

During the inauguration of a conference of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices of High Courts on ‘Administration of Justice on Fast Track,’ the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Chief Justice of Supreme court K.G. Balakrishnan have shared the same podium.

The stage was set and the topic of the conference was fully backed by recent examples of judicial activism. PM Manmohan Singh has clearly said that this is necessary that all organs of the state should respect the roles and functions of others and cautiously exercise powers accorded to them.

PM said on the use of public interest litigations (PILs) that the PILs have great effectiveness in initiating corrective action but it should not become the vehicles for settling political scores.

He said:

We need standards and benchmarks for screening so that only genuine PILs with a justiciable cause of action based on judicially manageable standards are taken up. This will also ensure consistency in judicial pronouncements.

On the other hand, K.G. Balakrishnan, who spoke before the Prime Minister, stressed on the role of judiciary and other organs of the state to work according to the role given by the constitution of India. He said that the Judiciary does see whether the rights of people’s are not being breached in any way.

After the Chief Justice’s speech PM came to speak and he clearly given the advice that judiciary, executive and legislature had an obligation to the Constitution and to the people to work in harmony. All the three institutions have their constitutionally assigned roles and responsibilities. They should go with that with all honesty by respecting the roles and functions of the other. Powers accorded to each organ must be exercised watchfully.


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