| Publication |
2009.
|
| Summary/Abstract |
The judiciary, particularly the Supreme Court, occupies an everincreasing
presence in the Indian landscape. The Court not only plays
an important adjudicatory role in a host of areas, but also actively
intervenes and shapes public policy and governance. Indeed, it has
waded into a bewildering variety of issues from the micro to the macro
level. In a remarkable judgment delivered in 2007 by a two-judge
bench of the Supreme Court, Justices A. K. Mathur and Markanday
Katju deviated from the case before them and pronounced:
Recently, the Courts have apparently, if not clearly, strayed into
the executive domain or in matters of policy. For instance, the
orders passed by the High Court in recent times dealt with subjects
ranging from nursery admissions, unauthorized schools, criteria for
free seats in schools, supply of drinking water in schools, number
of free beds in hospitals on public land, requirements for establishing
a world class burns ward in the hospital, the kind of air
Delhites breathe, begging in public, the use of sub-ways, the
nature of buses we board, the legality of constructions in Delhi,
identifying the buildings to be demolished, the size of speedbreakers
on Delhi roads, auto-rickshaw over-charging, growing frequency
of road accidents and enhancing of fines etc.
|