Source: https://indconlawphil.wordpress.com/2014/01/10/guest-post-judicial-accountability-and-fundamental-rights-ii/
Timestamp: 2018-03-22 00:03:53
Document Index: 165376806

Matched Legal Cases: ['Art. 12', 'Art. 12', 'Art. 12', 'Art. 32', 'Art. 19', 'Art. 26', 'Art. 32', 'Art. 32', 'Art. 32', 'Art. 226', 'Art. 32', 'Art. 32', 'art 14']

Guest Post: Judicial Accountability and Fundamental Rights – II | Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy
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Filed under Judicial Accountability, Meaning of "State"
Tagged as article 12, judicial accountability, judiciary as state
6 responses to “Guest Post: Judicial Accountability and Fundamental Rights – II”
I read with great interest both the posts on Judicial Accountability focusing on the question whether judiciary is a state under Article 12. Although I agree with Mr. Krishna Prasad that judiciary may violate fundamental rights and therefore some of its judgments must be impugned under Article 226 or 32. I do not subscribe to rationale suggested by him. In my opinion, there is no warrant for the proposition that Article 12 must be interpreted institutionally in the light of settled position of law like Airport Authority of Mathew J. Without subscribing functional approach, we may not bring instrumentalities and corporation under the purview of Article 12.
I find it untenable to restructure fundamental rights by reading new grounds of restrictions and therefore, the analogy of interpretation of Article 26(c) based on a judgment of the Supreme Court is misplaced to read any artificial restrictions on litigant’s power to move Supreme Court under Article 32. In fact, in Jagjeevanram’s case, Shetty J., had guarded against going beyond the grounds of restrictions on fundamental rights.
The point which has been missed in the analysis is this: with judiciary becoming activists, it is pronouncing two types of judgments – a) judgments in personam (judgments binding on parties) and b) judgment in rem (legislative void jurisprudence). So far as the latter is concerned, since they partake the character of law, it is imperative to test their validity on the very grounds on which we can impugn the validity of legislations.
Faculty, ILS Law College, Pune
On the question of functionality and its implications for the interpretation of Art. 12, I do not think my argument warrants a complete re-reading of the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court and in particular, the Air Authorities case. In my view, it is one thing to say that instrumentalities of the State come within the purview of Art. 12 (inter alia, in the light of the functions they perform), but it is quite another to say that institutions that otherwise fall within the purview of Art. 12 will somehow be absolved from Part III commitments because the particular function under challenge is judicial and not legislative. It is the latter proposition to which I object, not the former. If this is true, then it is difficult to confine the ratio on PC Garg’s case to legislative functions performed by judicial bodies alone.
On the possibility of restrictions on the right guaranteed by Art. 32, thank you very much for bringing to my notice Shetty J’s judgment in S. Rangarajan Etc vs P. Jagjivan Ram, (1989) 2 SCC 574. There are however, two problems with relying on that case, in my view. First, this is in direct contradiction of the earlier Constitution bench decision in Acharya Narendra Prasadji v. State of Gujarat upon which I relied in my post. One answer to this may be that the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court in the context of Art. 19 rights cannot be directly transplanted to a different context – whether it be Art. 26(c) (this was the issue in Narendra Prasadji) or indeed, Art. 32. This may mean that both Jagjivan Ram and Acharya Narendra Prasadji are inconclusive as far as the right under Art. 32 is concerned.
Second, the proposition that there can be no restrictions at all on the right under Art. 32 is untrue as a matter of present law. Consider for example the decision on Daryao v. State of Gujarat, AIR 1961 SC 1457. There, the Supreme Court held:
“We hold that if a writ petition filed by a party under Art. 226 is considered on the merits as a contested matter and is dismissed the decision thus pronounced would continue to bind the parties unless it is otherwise modified or reversed by appeal or other appropriate proceedings permissible under the Constitution. It would not be open to a party to ignore the said judgment and move this Court under Art. 32 by an original petition made on the same facts and for obtaining the same or similar orders or writs.”
In my view, this is a restriction on the right guaranteed by Art. 32. One can of course argue about whether it is reasonable or not.
On the distinction between adjudication that is confined to deciding the rights of parties and decisions that “partake the character of law”, I entirely agree with you. In fact, I think the ratio in PC Garg goes a long way in taking the view that the judiciary is “state” when it performs the latter set of functions. My post was only an attempt to see whether it is possible take one more step.
Would the Bhullar judgment, which was overruled yesterday, be an example of a case which could be challenged under Article 32 for fundamental rights violation (art 14) by the judiciary?
I’m not sure how Krishnaprasad would respond to this, but I think if *anything* could be challenged under Article 14, Bhullar, with its distinction between prisoners who are entitled to commutation on grounds of delay, and prisoners who aren’t, certainly could!
Puneet Dinesh
This question is directed to Krishna Prasad,
In the three reasons that you provide to conclude that judiciary can be brought within the precincts of article 12, I’m not satisfied with the third reason.You have referred to a few articles in Part III wherein the recipient has to be a body with judicial character. But i’m unable to grasp how this in itself can be a ground for reading courts into article 12. In Zee films (it’s been discussed in this blog-Article 12 line of cases)- petitioners argument that a body capable of violating fundamental rights should be considered within the ambit of article 12 was rejected by the Apex court. Applying the same logic, it’s hard for me to see courts within the ambit of article only due to the reason that they are capable of violating fundamental rights.
Thank you very much for your comment. To answer your objection, let me separate out, what are in my view, two distinct propositions:
Proposition 1 – Any entity that is capable of infringing the rights of a citizen is “State” under Article 12.
Proposition 2 – If the provisions of Part III contemplate that the rights guaranteed therein are addressed to a particular entity, that entity must fall within the purview of “State” under Article 12.
My argument relies on Proposition 2, not Proposition 1. You suggest that Proposition 1 is false. However, it does not follow from this that Proposition 2 is also incorrect. Proposition 2 does not depend on the capability or otherwise (in a factual sense) of an entity to infringe fundamental rights. In fact, Proposition 2 is defensible in three simple steps:
Step 1 – Part III rights are only guaranteed against entities that fall within the purview of “State” under Article 12.
Step 2 – This must mean that, if an entity is the addressee of rights underkr Part III, it falls within the purview of Article 12.
Step 3 – Reading Steps 1 and 2 together, the fact that judiciary is the addressee of some rights under Part III (for example, Article 32) must mean that, it is “State” under Article 12.