Exchange of Advices

The other day i.e on Sunday, February 7, 2011 the Prime Minister of India Dr Manmohan Singh made an appeal to the judiciary not to exercise its power of judicial review to undermine the legitimate role assigned to other branches of the government while addressing the 17th Commonwealth Law conference at Hyderabad in the presence of Chief Justice of India S.H.Kapadia and several legal luminaries from around the world. It is a legitimate concern of the Prime Minister in the wake of a detailed scrutiny of the records handled by the union ministry in the case of 2G spectrum allocation of licenses and the appointment of the Cenral Vigilance Commissioner P.J.thomas on the basis of petitions filed before the Supreme Court of India. The point is how legitimate or justified the action of the Apex court could be in this regard. The very fact that some serious and senior citizens have filed these petitions indicates that the discriminatory style and partial attitude on the part of rulers need to be scrutinised and evaluated by some authority. Who is to do this job if not by the apex court? In such matters where the highest executive authority of India is involved in decision-making the judiciary will and should have an upper hand legitimately to deliver natural justice. It should not be construed as an interference in the working of executive by the judiciary. If there is no safety valve like this in the form of judiciary, then the result will be what we are witnessing in Cairo for the last 2-3 weeks. When the role of permanent executive has been gradually usurped by the legislative wing, there was no one to question it with the result near-total discrimination prevails in the delivery of services to the citizens based on political considerations. God help this society and nation.

Unfortunately the suggestion of the Chief Justice for the creation of Indian Regulatory Service like I.A.S and I.P.S for the proper delivery of essential utilities to the common man at a cheaper cost was not taken notice of by the Prime Minister.