JUDICIARY

 

CLASS- VIII    SPL-III

05.    JUDICIARY

·       To enforce the rule of law, we have a judicial system that consists of the mechanism of courts that a citizen can approach when a law is violated.

·       As an organ of government, the judiciary plays a crucial role in the functioning of India’s democracy. It can play this role only because it is independent.

What is the Role of the Judiciary?

Dispute Resolution:

·       The judicial system provides a mechanism for resolving disputes between citizens, between citizens and the government, between two state governments and between the centre and state governments.

Judicial Review:

·       As the final interpreter of the Constitution, the judiciary also has the power to strike down particular laws passed by the Parliament if it believes that these are a violation of the basic structure of the Constitution. This is called judicial review.

Upholding the Law and Enforcing Fundamental Rights:

·       Every citizen of India can approach the Supreme Court or the High Court if they believe that their Fundamental Rights have been violated. For example, in the Class VII book, you read about Hakim Sheikh, an agricultural labourer who fell from a running train and injured himself and whose condition got worse because several hospitals refused to admit him.

·       On hearing his case, the Supreme Court ruled that Article 21 which provides every citizen the Fundamental Right to Life also includes the Right to Health. It, therefore, directed the West Bengal government to pay him compensation for the loss suffered as well as to come up with a blueprint for primary health care with particular reference to treatment of patients during an emergency.

What is an Independent Judiciary?

·       The ‘separation of powers’is a key feature of the Constitution. What this means here is that other branches of government – the legislature and the executive – cannot interfere in the work of the judiciary. The courts are not under the government and do not act on their behalf.

·       For the above separation to work well, it is also crucial that all judges in the High Court as well as the Supreme Court are appointed with very little interference from these other branches of government. Once appointed to this office, it is also very difficult to remove a judge.

·       It is the independence of the judiciary that allows the courts to play a central role in ensuring that there is no misuse of power by the legislature and the executive.

·       It also plays a crucial role in protecting the Fundamental Rights of citizens because anyone can approach the courts if they believe that their rights have been violated.

Structure of Courts in India:

·       There are three different levels of courts in our country. There are several courts at the lower level while there is only one at the apex level.

·       The courts that most people interact with are what are called Subordinate or District Courts. These are usually at the district or Tehsil level or in towns and they hear many kinds of cases.

·       Each state is divided into districts that are presided over by a District Judge. Each state has a High Court which is the highest court of that state.

·       At the top is the Supreme Court that is located in New Delhi and is presided over by the Chief Justice of India. The decisions made by the Supreme Court are binding on all other courts in India.

·       In India, we have an integrated judicial system, meaning that the decisions made by higher courts are binding on the lower courts.

·       Another way to understand this integration is through the appellate system that exists in India. This means that a person can appeal to a higher court if they believe that the judgment passed by the lower court is not just.

A case study:    Let us understand what we mean by the appellate system by tracking a case, State (Delhi Administration) vs Laxman Kumar and Others (1985), from the lower courts to the Supreme Court.

In February 1980, Laxman Kumar married 20-year-old Sudha Goel and they lived in a flat in Delhi with Laxman’s brothers and their families. On 2 December 1980 Sudha died in hospital due to burns. Her family filed a case in court. When this case was heard in the Trial Court, four of her neighbours were called in as witnesses. They stated that on the night of December 1, they had heard Sudha scream and had forced their way into Laxman’s flat. There they saw Sudha standing with her sari in flames. They extinguished the fire by wrapping Sudha in a gunny bag and a blanket. Sudha told them that her mother-inlaw Shakuntala had poured kerosene oil on her and that her husband Laxman had lit the fire. During the trial, members of Sudha’s family and a neighbour stated that Sudha had been subjected to torture by her in-laws and that they were demanding more cash, a scooter and a fridge on the birth of the first child. As part of their defence, Laxman and his mother stated that Sudha’s sari had accidentally caught fire while she was heating milk. On the basis of this and other evidence, the Trial Court convicted Laxman, his mother Shakuntala and his brother-in-law Subash Chandra and sentenced all three of them to death.

In November 1983, the three accused went to the High Court to appeal against this verdict of the Trial Court. The High Court, after hearing the arguments of all the lawyers, decided that Sudha had died due to an accidental fire caused by the kerosene stove. Laxman, Shakuntala and Subash Chandra were acquitted.

You may remember the photo essay on the women’s movement in your Class VII book. You read about how, in the 1980s, women’s groups across the country spoke out against ‘dowry deaths’. They protested against the failure of courts to bring these cases to justice.

The above High Court judgment deeply troubled women and they held demonstrations and filed a separate appeal against this High Court decision in the Supreme Court through the Indian Federation of Women Lawyers.

In 1985, the Supreme Court heard this appeal against the acquittal of Laxman and the two members of his family. The Supreme Court heard the arguments of the lawyers and reached a decision that was different from that of the High Court. They found Laxman and his mother guilty but acquitted the brother-in-law Subash because they did not have enough evidence against him. The Supreme Court decided to send the accused to prison for life.

Different Branches of the Legal System:

Criminal Law

·       Deals with conduct or acts that the law defines as offences. For example, theft, harassing a woman to bring more dowry, murder.

·       It usually begins with the lodging of First Information Report (FIR) with the police who investigate the crime after which a case is filed in the court.

·       If found guilty, the accused can be sent to jail and also fined.

Civil Law

·       Deals with any harm or injury to rights of individuals. For example, disputes relating to sale of land, purchase of goods, rent matters, divorce cases.

·       A petition has to be filed before the relevant court by the affected party only. In a rent matter, either the landlord or tenant can file a case.

·       The court gives the specific relief asked for. For instance, in a case between a landlord and a tenant, the court can order the flat to be vacated and pending rent to be paid.

Does Everyone Have Access to the Courts?

·       In principle, all citizens of India can access the courts in this country. This implies that every citizen has a right to justice through the courts.

·       If any citizen believes that their rights are being violated, then they can approach the court for justice to be done. While the courts are available for all, in reality access to courts has always been difficult for a vast majority of the poor in India.

·       Legal procedures involve a lot of money and paperwork as well as take up a lot of time.

·       In response to this, the Supreme Court in the early 1980s devised a mechanism of Public Interest Litigation or PIL to increase access to justice. It allowed any individual or organisation to file a PIL in the High Court or the Supreme Court on behalf of those whose rights were being violated.

·       The legal process was greatly simplified and even a letter or telegram addressed to the Supreme Court or the High Court could be treated as a PIL. In the early years, PIL was used to secure justice on a large number of issues such as rescuing bonded labourers from inhuman work conditions; and securing the release of prisoners in Bihar who had been kept in jail even after their punishment term was complete.

·       The mid-day meal that children now receive in government and government-aided schools is because of a PIL.

·       For the common person, access to courts is access to justice. The courts exercise a crucial role in interpreting the Fundamental Rights of citizens.

·       However, there are also court judgments that people believe work against the best interests of the common person. For example, activists who work on issues concerning the right to shelter and housing for the poor believe that the recent judgments on evictions are a far cry from earlier judgments.

·       While recent judgments tend to view the slum dweller as an encroacher in the city, earlier judgments (like the 1985 Olga Tellis vs Bombay Municipal Corporation) had tried to protect the livelihoods of slum dwellers.

·       Another issue that affects the common person’s access to justice is the inordinately long number of years that courts take to hear a case. The phrase ‘justice delayed is justice denied’ is often used to characterise this extended time period that courts take.

·       However, inspite of this there is no denying that the judiciary has played a crucial role in democratic India, serving as a check on the powers of the executive and the legislature as well as in protecting the Fundamental Rights of citizens. The members of the Constituent Assembly had quite correctly envisioned a system of courts with an independent judiciary as a key feature of our democracy.

                

 

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