Column: Is the judiciary ruling India? - Analysis - DNA

Column: Is the judiciary ruling India? - Analysis - DNA:

Arvind Radhakrishnan, who has written this article, teaches law, but he has failed to understand the basic reason for the people's distrust of the executive and the legislature and its trust in the judiciary. It's right that politicians will have to play politics, but the politicians will have to understand the limit of their politicking. From 1950 the politicians began to play politics with the Constitution and began to violate its spirit, its provisions and unabashedly resorted to reckless amendment of the Constitution. No wonder that when in 1967 the Supreme Court ruled in the Golaknath case that Parliament could not amend Fundamental Rights, people generally welcomed this. In Keshavanand Bharati(1978) case the SC came out with the "basic structure" theory, which said that though Parliament has the power to amend any part of the Constitution, it could not amend the basic structure of the Constitution. In the Minerva Mills case(1980) the SC reiterated its position. The politicians took the Constitution for a ride when they had the requisite majority in the Parliament and State Legislatures. Had not the judiciary stepped in, the politicians would have thrown constitutional provisions and propriety through the window as is evident in the case of federal structure, governor's role, meaning of secularism etc. As the guardian of the Constitution it is incumbent upon the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution in the spirit of our founding fathers.