Supreme Court cannot provide panacea for all problems

The plain talk by the Chief Justice of India in the open court with regard to its Constitutional limitations deserves appreciation by all the right-thinking eople. While what the head of judiciary said with regard to a plethora of petitions received by it asking for moon and in answer his reply that the Supreme Court cannot bring “Ram Rajya” reflects the fact that the judiciary alone cannot achieve the avowed goal of “Ram Rajya” or to say in the legal parlance, the welfare state.

This takes us to the vital questions of cooperation and coordination between three vital pillars of democracy, namely, executive, legislature and judiciary. The Constitution also provides for a built-in system of checks and balances. All the three pillars though independent, are also dependent on others. So far the system has worked well.

However, in the recent times the hopes and aspirations of people have taken a quantum jump perhaps in the light of their experiences over past 69 years.In other words, what was expected to be achieved has not been achieved during this period since Independence. The makers of the Constitution, for example, had a vision of India as a welfare state where all the people, irrespective of religion, caste, creed, class or sex, would remain in peace and harmony and strive to achieve the goal of welfare state or Ram Rajya. But frankly speaking this dream has not been fulfilled.

There may be several reasons for the failure in achieving this goal but for such a sorry state of affairs it would not be proper to just blame the system alone. It is indeed unfortunate that despite there being a whole chapter on the “duties of the citizens” fissiparous tendencies are going unabated, if not growing day by day.

The punitive section on Sedition which was rarely used earlier has to be used more frequently. Its frequent use should be linked to the increased ‘boldness’ of anti-national elements and therefore, the demand for scrapping it is illogical.

On the other hand, it should be made more stringent and a mechanism should be evolved for the speedy disposal of such cases. The tendency of filing criminal defamation cases too, for the same reasoning deserves to be viewed in the same manner.

If more number of people indulge in hurling defamatory statements, then it is obvious that more civil and criminal cases of defamation would be filed. The number of cases filed in the courts can never be taken as a barometer to judge its necessity or otherwise.

In fact, the courts must realise the fact that the people are tradition-bound. Some of the traditions may not pass the test of logic or rationale, still the courts should adopt a realistic approach instead of playing the role of reformer.

The orders and judgements which are not compatible with the prevailing age-old social practices are bound to face ‘dishonour’ and the people doing so would unfortunately become the heroes. Recent example of Dahi-Haandi size, Shah Banu’s case are just a few examples of this.

Still the broader question of the Constitution reflecting the hopes and aspirations remains to be addressed. Social justice, total prohibition, gender equality, equity, etc. still remain in the holy book called the Constitution. Unfortunately in our country there is nothing like ‘referendum.

Elections do offer some chance to citizens to express their likings or disliking, but that is only symbolic. There are a host of views that deserves to be capitulated. Therefore, there is an urgent need to incorporate a provision for ‘referendum’ in the Constitution.

In short, in order to avoid the situation of helplessness let there be a truly democratic Constitution. Further, in a democracy, the majority people’s will alone should prevail and not the ‘imposed’ idealism dictated
by a few.

Ban on surrogacy From test-tube baby to clowning to surrogacy, the re-productive science has made rapid strides in the recent times.

While all these have delivered good results to the mankind, there is a dark side too. The commercialisation or what is commonly known as ‘Rent a Womb’ has played havoc with the new invention.

The recent move of the Union Cabinet to enact a law to regulate the system of surrogacy would go a long way in ensuring that only ‘genuine’ cases of surrogacy are cleared by the clinics offering this facility and the wrong-doers are punished severely.