Landmark judgement ., Thesis of Law

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LANDMARK JUDGMENTS OF THE

SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

Justice Ved Prakash

Chairman

Law Commission of Madhya Pradesh

The Organic Element of Law

“The inevitable truth is that law is not static and

immutable but ever increasingly dynamic and

grows with the ongoing passage of time.”

• S. Ratnavel Pandian, J.

in Supreme Court Advocates on Record

Association Vs. Union of India (1993) 4 SCC 441

Great judgment vs. Landmark judgment

• A great judgment is one that restores the constitutional

values of a polity from the waywardness into which it

may have fallen, while a landmark judgment is one

which opens up new directions in our constitutional

thinking and, in the process, adds new dimensions to

what are regarded as established constitutional

principles. If “great” restores the centrality of

constitutional values, “landmark” revitalises them.”-

Peter Ronald deSouza , Professor at the Centre for

the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi

Landmark Judgments

• “...... When histories of nations are written and critiqued, there are judicial decisions at the forefront of liberty. Yet others have to be consigned to the archives, reflective of what was, but should never have been.” D.Y Chandrachud J. In Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (retd.) Vs. Union of India and ors. , (2017) 10 SCC 1

Personal Liberty: Procedure Established by Law: Fair, Just and Reasonable Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India (AIR 1978 SC 597) (1978).

• The view expressed in A. K. Gopalan’s case was revisited in this case after about 28 years.
• The main issues were whether the right to go abroad is a part of the right to personal liberty under Article 21 and whether the Passport Act prescribes a ‘procedure’ as required by Article 21 of the Constitution.
• The SC held that the right to go abroad is a part of the right to personal liberty under Article 21.
• The SC also ruled that the mere existence of an enabling law was not enough to restrain personal liberty. “The procedure prescribed by law has to be fair, just and reasonable, not fanciful, oppressive or arbitrary. ”

LIFE AND LIBERTY: ADM Jabalpur v. Shivakant Shukla, (1976) 2 SCC 521

• A Constitution Bench by a majority of 4:1, ruled that while a proclamation of emergency is in operation , the right to move High Courts under Article 226 for Habeas Corpus challenging illegal detention by State will stand suspended. The apex Court said “. .....If extraordinary powers are given, they are given because the Emergency is extraordinary, and are limited to the period of the Emergency.”
• The judgment is more recognised for the dissenting opinion of Justice HR Khanna in which he said - "detention without trial is an anathema to all those who love personal liberty... A dissent is an appeal to the brooding spirit of the law, to the intelligence of a future day, when a later decision may possibly correct the error into which the dissenting Judge believes the court to have been betrayed".

2.Amendability of Fundamental Rights

Shankari Prasad v. Union of India , [1952] SCR 89 (1951): This case dealt with the amendability of Fundamental Rights (the First Amendment’s validity was challenged).

• The SC Court held that the power conferred on Parliament by Art. 368 to amend is a very wide power and includes the power to take away the fundamental rights guaranteed by Part III. , and
• that in the context of Art. 13 (2), "law" must be taken to mean rules or regulations made in exercise of ordinary legislative power and not amendments to the constitution made in the exercise of constituent power with the result that Art. 13(2) does not affect amendments made under Art. 368.
• This view was reiterated in Sajjan Singh vs State Of Rajasthan, AIR 1965 SC 845

Amendability of Fundamental Rights The issues regarding power of the Parliament to amend Part III of the Constitution was re-examined in I. C. Golak Nath v. State of Punjab, AIR 1967 SC 1643

• The questions in this case were whether amendment is a law within the meaning of Art.13(2) of the Constitution of India, and
• whether Fundamental Rights can be amended by the Parliament?
• Overruling Sajjan Singh by a majority of six to five the Supreme Court held that amendment under Article 368 is “law” within the meaning of Article 13(2);
• It further ruled that Legislature does not enjoy the power to amend Part III of the Constitution to take away or abridge fundamental rights.

The Doctrine of Basic Structure-

Application

Indira Nehru Gandhi v. Raj Narain 1975 SC 2299

• The validity of 39 th Constitution amendment enacted in 1975 which (Article 39-A ) sought to place the election of the President, the Vice President, the Prime Minister and the Speaker of the Lok Sabha beyond the scrutiny of the constitutional courts was challenged in this case. The S.C. resorting to the theory of basic structure of the Constitution struck down Clause (4) of Article 329-A on the grounds that it was beyond the Parliament’s amending power as it destroyed the basic structure of the Constitution.

The Doctrine of Basic Structure- Minerva Mills case, (1980) AIR 1980 SC 1789

Validity of Constitution (42nd Amendment) Act, 1976

,which inter alia provided for exclusion of judicial review of

constitutional amendments and expressly conferred

unlimited amendment power to the Parliament, was

challenged on the ground that they are violative of the

‘basic structure’ of the Constitution.

• The Court by a majority of 4 to 1 struck down clauses (4)

and (5) of article 368 holding that they violated the basic

structure of the Constitution.

• The Court ruled that Parliament’s power to make

Constitutional amendments is limited which itself is a

basic feature of the Constitution. The judgement makes it

clear that the Constitution, and not the Parliament is

supreme.

4. Public Interest Litigation- The Beginning

Mumbai Kamgar Sabha, Bombay ,AIR 1976 SC 1455

This case is considered to be the foundation of public interest litigation in India.

• In this case Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer speaking for the Court held that- “Procedural prescriptions are handmaids, not mistresses, of justice.... Our adjectival branch of jurisprudence, by and large, deals not with sophisticated litigants but the rural poor, the urban lay and the weaker societal segments for whom law will be an added terror.
• Test litigations, representative actions, pro bono publico and like broadened forms of legal proceedings are in keeping with the current accent on justice to the common man and a necessary disincentive to those who wish to bypass the real issues on the merits by suspect reliance on peripheral procedural, shortcomings.

Public Interest Litigation: Sunil Batra v. Delhi

Administration & Others, AIR 1978 SC 1675

A landmark decision on prison reforms , in this case the apex Court held that a convict is entitled to the precious right guaranteed by Art. 21 that he shall not be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to the procedure established by law.

• The Court ruled that fundamental rights do not flee the person as he enters the prison although they may suffer shrinkage necessitated by incarceration. Our Constitutional culture has now crystallised in favour of prison justice and judicial jurisdiction.
• The intervention of social welfare organisations in litigative processes pregnant with wider implications is a healthy mediation between the people and the rule of law.
• The Court issued a number of direction for improving the conditions of jail inmates. (^17)

5. Human Rights; Art.21- Right to Die With

Dignity

• In this case the victim of rape continued to be in persistent vegetative state (PVS) for a period of 36 years. This case triggered the debate on need to change euthanasia laws.
• In a writ petition under Article 32 it was prayed that the hospital where she is laying for last 36 years be directed to stop the life support system.
• The Supreme Court ruled that individuals had a right to die with dignity.
• Issuing guidelines regarding passive euthanasia the court ruled that a decision to discontinue life support can be taken either by the parents or the spouse or other close relatives, or in the absence of any of them, even by a person or a body of persons acting as a next friend or in their absence by the doctors attending the patient, subject to approval of the High Court.

Human Rights : Common Cause (A Regd. Society) vs. Union

Of India on 9 March, 2018 - Right to Die With Dignity

• The apex Court held that right to life and liberty as envisaged under Article 21 of the Constitution encompasses within its sphere individual dignity and that the right to live with dignity also includes the smoothening of the process of dying in case of a terminally ill patient or a person in PVS with no hope of recovery, and
• that a competent person who has come of age has the right to refuse specific treatment or all treatment or opt for an alternative treatment, even if such decision entails a risk of death.
• Detailed directions issued by the apex Court in this regard.