Judicial Activism

Supreme Court of India

As the Indian Supreme Court emerged from the dark days of Indian democracy, it was on a quest for its identity. The celebrated decision of Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India, A.I.R. 1978 S.C. 597, was a step in that direction. In redefining “procedure established by law” as “just, fair and reasonable law,” the Court by the stroke of a pen shook off the limitations imposed on it by the framers of the political document. Although this important decision gave the Court the power to review legislative action, the Court continued to function within the narrow British precincts that it had inherited.

However, between 1978 and 1982, four crucial events occurred that completely revised India's judicial functioning. In 1978, the Court treated a postcard addressed to a Judge of the Supreme Court as a writ petition. In 1980, the Court ruled on a habeas corpus petition filed, based on a newspaper report, on behalf of prisoners languishing in the remote jails of Bihar; the Court held that defendants have the right to a speedy trial, as part of the Constitution's article 21. That same year, the Supreme Court, in Minerva Mills v. Union of India, A.I.R. 1980 S.C. 1789, held that parts III and IV were “the core of social revolution” under the Indian Constitution and added that “to give absolute primacy to one over the other [would be] to disturb the harmony of the Constitution.” Finally, in S. P. Gupta v. Union of India, A.I.R. 1982 S.C. 149, the Court widened the principle of locus standi under the Constitution, holding that any public-spirited individual could approach the Court for a remedy when the victims themselves were precluded from approaching the Court on grounds of illiteracy, inaccessibility, or disability.

There were two important consequences of these events. First, article 21 became the repository of all socioeconomic rights mentioned in part IV of the Indian Constitution, including rights not otherwise enumerated in the Constitution. Second, “publicspirited” individuals had a new constitutional role. The result was the formation of a new order of rights that affected India's constitutional dynamics in many ways. The floodgates opened. Social action litigation became the word of the town and the tool of the judiciary. The Supreme Court was more eager than ever before to “democratize justice,” and “socially spirited” individuals and organizations were ever more willing to oblige the Court.

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