Democratic Institutions
There is a hierarchy of norms for the governance of our society and the Constitution is at the top of it. https://thewire.in/law/there-is-no-lack-of-judicial-power-in-india-just-a-refusal-to-act-on-it
Yet our Constitutional rights as citizens now appear to be unenforceable. Our elected representatives now treat the Constitution not as a normative and enforceable document but as a political document alone, a statement of intent to be enforced selectively at its discretion.
It is this approach to the Constitution that the court has been unable to correct and on which it has failed to demand accountability.
In 2023, the Supreme Court failed to protect electoral democracy, the health of our economy, our own health, federalism, and the fundamental rights of citizens.
Whether it was demonetisation and its impact on the country, the right of our elected representatives to remain in office without being subjected to Operation Lotus, or the disappearance of a state and its conversion to a Union territory, the court deferred to the wisdom of the government of the day, sometimes explicitly stating that it was not the function of the court to interfere with government policy or under the doctrine of not wanting to enter the “political thicket” laying claim to work on the theory of separation of powers.
05/01/2024
The report, titled ‘State of the Judiciary,’ closely looks at issues of vacancy, lack of diversity in the judiciary, lack of infrastructure for both judges and litigants, and the sub-optimal working conditions of court staff, among others. https://thewire.in/law/india-judiciary-courts-pendency-causes-caste-women
As on October 2023, the report points out that there are over five crore pending cases across all higher and subordinate courts in India. To handle them, however, there are only 20,580 judges working in the Supreme Court, the high courts and district courts.
The data (as on October 1, 2023) reveals that as against the sanctioned strength of 1,114 judges in the high courts across the country, as many as 347 positions are vacant.
Similarly, in the district judiciary, out of the total sanctioned strength of 25,081 judges, as of April 2023, the working strength was only 19,781. As many as 5,300 district judges’ positions are vacant.
India’s highest court presently has only three female judges (9.3%) out of its working strength of 32 judges, as of October 1, 2023.
The situation is just as grim in the high courts. Out of 767 permanent and additional judges in the high courts across India, only 103 are female judges (i.e 13.42%).
The district judiciary, however, shows considerable improvement with the strength of 36.33% female judges.
26/12/2023
For the longest time, the court did not even hear important matters that the government did not want it to.
Of late, it has begun to form benches. Meanwhile a lot of the damage has been done and continues to be done, asserts Aakar Patel.
Of late, the court has taken up some of these issues but none of them remain decided.
It is important they be kept in the realm of the public domain.
Three of them are about the gutting of Article 370 (where a challenge was filed in August 2019), on Electoral Bonds (filed in September 2017) and on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (filed December 2019).
by Aakar Patel
31/10/2023
While dealing with a plea filed by a minor rape survivor’s father, for the medical termination of her pregnancy, the Gujarat high court on June 7 said that underage girls in the past would have given birth to at least one child by the time they were 17 years old.
Bar and Bench has reported that a single-judge bench of Justice Samir Dave invoked the Manusmriti, an ancient legal text that has been decried for espousing casteist and misogynist ideas, in making these observations.
https://thewire.in/women/gujarat-high-court-manusmriti-rape-survivor-children-underage-girls
09/06/2023
India’s Feud with Chandrachud Sheyril Agarwal, Joyojeet Pal http://joyojeet.people.si.umich.edu/chandrachud/
- 50 years ago, the SC ruled on the Constitution’s basic structure. What went on behind the scenes?
- At Least 11 of 21 Former Judges Opposing Same Sex Marriage Are Not as Sanskari as They Seem
- From the Gogoi Book..
- Sealed Cover Procedure Fundamentally Against Judicial Process, Want To End It' : Supreme Court
- Modi Govt vs The Supreme Court | The Final Battle for India’s Democracy
Subcategories
Fourth Estate
For Free speech and Media Rights see Fundamental Rights under Civil Liberties