12-11-2007, 03:26 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Judges cannot create law, only enforce: SC </b>
Pioneer News Service | New Delhi
Posted online: December 10, 2007
In the light of widespread concern of country's political fraternity and a section of the media, being in the mood of slef-introspection the Supreme Court on Monday scolded lower courts saying that the judges should now their jurisdiction and should not encroach on the legislative or executive domain.
Coming down heavily on judicial activism, the apex court deprecated the tendency of courts in India to rule on issues like nursery admissions and autorickshaw overcharging and said judges should know their "limits" and not to try to run government.
While performing an autopsy on the judgments of its own and its subsidiaries, a two-member bench said, "... We are repeatedly coming across cases where judges are unjustifiably trying to perform executive or legislative functions."
<b>"In our opinion, this is clearly unconstitutional. In the name of judicial activism, judges cannot cross their limits and try to takeover functions which belong to another organ of the State."</b>
"They must remember that judicial activism is not an unguided missile, failure to bear this in mind would lead to chaos. Public adulation must not sway the judges and personal aggrandizement must be eschewed," a bench of Justices AK Mathur and Markandey Katju observed.
Looking inward the apex court also held that the directions given by it in the assembly proceedings in Uttar Pradesh in 1998 and Jharkhand in 2005 as "glaring examples of deviations from the clearly provided constitutional scheme of separation of powers." The bench listed a number of local issues like unauthorised schools, criteria for free seats in schools, the size of speed-breakers on Delhi roads and enhancing of road fines dealt with by the Delhi High Court which, they said, were "matters pertaining exclusively to the executive or legislative domain." "If there is a law, judges can enforce it. But judges cannot create a law and seek to enforce it," the bench observed.
The observations came in a 22-page verdict with the Court's setting aside a Punjab and Haryana High Court order directing creation of posts of tractor driver to accommodate two gardeners employed on daily wages at a golf club run by Haryana Tourism Corporation and were asked to perform the duties of tractor drivers.
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Pioneer News Service | New Delhi
Posted online: December 10, 2007
In the light of widespread concern of country's political fraternity and a section of the media, being in the mood of slef-introspection the Supreme Court on Monday scolded lower courts saying that the judges should now their jurisdiction and should not encroach on the legislative or executive domain.
Coming down heavily on judicial activism, the apex court deprecated the tendency of courts in India to rule on issues like nursery admissions and autorickshaw overcharging and said judges should know their "limits" and not to try to run government.
While performing an autopsy on the judgments of its own and its subsidiaries, a two-member bench said, "... We are repeatedly coming across cases where judges are unjustifiably trying to perform executive or legislative functions."
<b>"In our opinion, this is clearly unconstitutional. In the name of judicial activism, judges cannot cross their limits and try to takeover functions which belong to another organ of the State."</b>
"They must remember that judicial activism is not an unguided missile, failure to bear this in mind would lead to chaos. Public adulation must not sway the judges and personal aggrandizement must be eschewed," a bench of Justices AK Mathur and Markandey Katju observed.
Looking inward the apex court also held that the directions given by it in the assembly proceedings in Uttar Pradesh in 1998 and Jharkhand in 2005 as "glaring examples of deviations from the clearly provided constitutional scheme of separation of powers." The bench listed a number of local issues like unauthorised schools, criteria for free seats in schools, the size of speed-breakers on Delhi roads and enhancing of road fines dealt with by the Delhi High Court which, they said, were "matters pertaining exclusively to the executive or legislative domain." "If there is a law, judges can enforce it. But judges cannot create a law and seek to enforce it," the bench observed.
The observations came in a 22-page verdict with the Court's setting aside a Punjab and Haryana High Court order directing creation of posts of tractor driver to accommodate two gardeners employed on daily wages at a golf club run by Haryana Tourism Corporation and were asked to perform the duties of tractor drivers.
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