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Date: 17-11-16

बिना नकदी के लेन-देन का दौर

देश में नोटबंदी के फैसले के जरिये कालेधन के खिलाफ जंग जारी है। इस जंग का मकसद है भ्रष्टाचार, अपराध और काले धन वाली अर्थव्यवस्था को खत्म करना। इसके साथ ही एक अन्य मकसद समाज को कैशलेस यानी नकद भुगतान रहित करना भी है। नि:संदेह नकद लेन-देन न्यूनतम होने से भी भ्रष्टाचार पर रोक लगेगी। भ्रष्टाचार, कालेधन, अपराध आदि की जड़ में कागज के नोट भी हैं और खासकर बड़े नोट। यदि किसी भी तरह उनके चलन को न्यूनतम या नियंत्रित कर दिया जाए तो कहा जा सकता है कि ‘‘न रहेगा बांस और न बजेगी बांसुरी’’। क्या ऐसा किया जाना संभव है? यदि यही सवाल पचास साल पहले पूछा जाता तो पूछने वाले को आदिम युग का आदमी समझने में कोई गलती नहीं होती, लेकिन अब जबकि प्रधानमंत्री कैशलेस सोसायटी की स्थापना के लिए जनता से सहयोग मांग रहे हैं तो लोग उन्हें सही ही ‘विजनरी’ कहा जा रहा है। दरअसल टेक्नोलॉजी ने आज नकद रहित लेन-देन को न केवल संभव बल्कि आसान भी बना दिया है। दुनिया के बहुत से विकसित देशों ने और यहां तक कि विकसित हो रहे देशों तक ने इसे कर दिखाया है। स्कैंडेनेवियन देश विशेषकर स्वीडन ने दुनिया का ऐसा पहला देश बनने का सौभाग्य हासिल किया है। यूरोप के अन्य बहुत से देश इसके करीब पहुंच चुके हैं। अमेरिका में 80 प्रतिशत लेनदेन कैशलेस हो रहा है। आश्चर्य की बात तो यह है कि सोमालीलैंड और केन्या जैसे गरीब देश भी इस सूची में शामिल हैं। यदि एशिया की बात करें तो दक्षिण कोरिया हमारे सामने है। जब इन देशों में यह हो सकता है तो भारत में क्यों नहीं हो सकता, जहां की परंपरा ही कैशलेस लेनदेन जैसी रही है। आज भी गांव का आदमी आमतौर पर दुकान से कुछ माह तक सामान खरीदता रहता है और फसल होने पर एक साथ चुकता कर देता है।

परस्पर विश्वास एवं कृषि-संस्कृति की चेतनागत पृष्ठभूमि कैशलेस समाज के लिए उपजाऊ जमीन का काम करेगी। वैसे इसकी भूमिका लगभग 25 साल पहले तब से बननी शुरू हो गई थी जब 1990 के आसपास देश में मोबाइल आया था। पहले तो यह उच्च वर्ग के हाथ की ही शान रहा, लेकिन इक्कीसवीं सदी के प्रवेश के साथ ही इसने आम लोगों के हाथ की जरूरत बनने की शुरुआत कर दी। आज यह पूरे देश में पहुंच चुका है। स्मार्टफोन की बिक्री के मामले में भारत आज चीन के बाद दुनिया का दूसरा सबसे बड़ा बाजार बन चुका है। हां मोबाइल-मनी के बारे में जरूर काफी पीछे है, लेकिन इतना अवश्य है कि कैशलेस समाज का एक संरचनात्मक ढांचा बन चुका है। किसानों के लिए अब यह केवल शहर में पढ़ रहे अपने बेटे-बेटियों का हालचाल जानते रहने का ही जरिया नहीं रह गया है, बल्कि देश में फसलों की कीमत, मौसम की जानकारी और खेती के तौर-तरीकों के प्रशिक्षण का भी आधार बन चुका है। वह फसलों की राष्ट्रीय स्तर की ई-मार्केटिंग भी करने लगा है।

प्रधानमंत्री ने ‘जे ए एम’ के तीन सूत्र दिए हैं। ‘जे’ यानी जनधन योजना, ‘ए’ यानी आधार कार्ड और ‘एम’ यानी मोबाइल। इसका नेटवर्क तैयार है। साथ ही गांव के लोगों के पास रुपे कार्ड (क्रेडिट कार्ड) भी है। पूरे देश में 1.2 लाख बैंकिंग सहयोगी नियुक्त हैं। देश के 1.3 लाख डाकघरों को बैंक के काम में लगाया जा रहा है, जो पूरे देश में और वह भी दूर-दराज क्षेत्रों तक फैले हुए हैं। इसने अब तक पूरे देश के लोगों तक अपने भाई-बंधुओं की खोज-खबर और मनीऑर्डर के जरिये उन तक धन पहुंचाने के दायित्व को बखूबी निभाया है। यहां इस सबकी चर्चा विशेष रूप से इसलिए, क्योंकि जब भी दिमाग में कैशलेस अर्थव्यवस्था का विचार आता है उसकी बड़ी बाधा के रूप में हमारे गांवों के दृश्य उभरने लगते हैं। जबकि सच्चाई अब वह नहीं रह गई है। जहां तक छोटे-मोटे लेन-देन का सवाल है उसके लिए 100-50 आदि के नोट रहेंगे ही। अमेरिका में भी 20 प्रतिशत खरीदारी नकद के जरिये ही होती है। हां, सरकार को कुछ नियम जरूर बनाने होंगे कि ‘इतने’ हजार रुपये से अधिक की खरीददारी नकद में नहीं की जा सकती। घर में एक साथ ‘इतनी’ मात्रा से अधिक नकदी रखना अवैध होगा। साथ ही डिजिटल भुगतान के तरीकों पर लगने वाले सरचार्ज, सर्विस चार्ज और सुविधा शुल्क आदि को भी खत्म करना होगा। बड़े नोटों के चलन को रोकने के लिए हर स्तर पर जरूरी कदम उठाने होंगे।

कैशलेस तंत्र के लिए कुछ और नियमों की भी जरूरत होगी जैसे विक्रेताओं को, चाहे वह छोटा दुकानदार ही क्यों न हो, अपने यहां नकद विहीन लेन-देन की सुविधा उपलब्ध करानी होगी और इस माध्यम से पेमेंट स्वीकार करना अनिवार्य होगा। वैसे भी ई-वॉलेट (इलेक्ट्रॉनिक बटुआ) ने इस काम को दोनों के लिए आसान बना दिया है। आप बैंक एकाउंट से एक बार पैसा अपने ई-वॉलेट में डाल लीजिए और फिर जरूरत पड़ने पर भुगतान करते रहिए। अब तो शहरों के छोटे-छोटे चाय-पान वाले दुकानदार भी इस तरह से पेमेंट स्वीकार करने लगे हैं। जरूरत है इसे गांव-गांव तक पहुंचाने और इसके लिए लोगों को विश्वास दिलाकर थोड़ा प्रशिक्षित करने की। स्वाइप मशीन की सुविधा को भी अनिवार्य करना होगा। पिछले कुछ सालों में हुए कैशलेस भुगतानों के आंकड़े इस बारे में हमें आश्वस्त भी करते हैं। चेक से सालाना भुगतान 85 लाख करोड़ रुपये और डिजिटल माध्यमों से भुगतान 92 लाख करोड़ रुपये का हुआ है। उपभोग वस्तुओं का 78 प्रतिशत भुगतान नकद में हुआ। अच्छी बात यह है कि हमारे यहां अंतत: 22 प्रतिशत भुगतान तो कैशलैस रहा ही है, जिसे एक साल में आसानी से 40 प्रतिशत तक लाया जा सकता है। आज नोटबंटी से लोगों को जो तकलीफ उठानी पड़ रही है वह कुछ कम हो सकती थी यदि हम कैशलेस पेमेंट की ओर थोड़ा अधिक बढ़ चुके होते, लेकिन इस संकट की एक देन यह है कि उसने गांव के लोगों को बैंक के कांउटर तक पहुंचाकर उन्हें बैंक और अपने एकांउट के महत्व का एहसास करा दिया है। बस, यूं कह लीजिए कि कैशलेस की एक धुंधली तस्वीर उनके मन में उभर चुकी है। आगे इसके बेहतर नतीजे मिलने चाहिए।

[ लेखक डॉ. विजय अग्रवाल, भारतीय प्रशासनिक सेवा के पूर्व अधिकारी हैं ]

Date: 17-11-16

Clean up politics

But state funding of polls is not the best idea for sucking out the black money

Parliament is set for a stormy winter session as many parties are strongly protesting the chaotic way in which Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes have been scrapped over the last week. They are reflecting widespread worry about the economic cost of the demonetisation drive, as consumption shrivels and employment takes a hit. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is asking these parties to support the demonetisation drive in national interest. He calls it a crusade against corruption and fake currency. Nevertheless, on the ground it’s being experienced as a scorched earth policy that hits truckers, migrant labourers, small traders and those working in the rural or informal economy particularly hard. The cash drought is taking a heavy toll on sowing, people die while standing in queues, or struggle to pay for weddings, medical emergencies and even groceries.

There’s a growing feeling that government should have chosen a better way to combat black money. Former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, for example, considered demonetisation to be an old-fashioned tool. Since big black money hoarders usually find ways around demonetisation it would be better to focus on stronger tax administration, as well as realigning taxes so as to kill the incentive for generating black money in the first place. High stamp and registration duties in the real estate sector, for example, encourage hiding the real cost of transactions.

As the political debate gathers heat, Modi has widened it by suggesting state funding of polls. But this idea is not less contentious. How exactly will a government running deficits get into the business of providing political parties with the funding they need? Suppose it could be done this time with the deposits of the demonetisation drive – which in itself would be a travesty as the outcome of people’s current travails would merely be more money for politicians – what about the next time?

Diverting money for this purpose would also open up another racket – parties would contest merely to win state funding. What would work better is a change in political culture, whereby all political parties reveal the sources of their funding. Parties must also stop victimising businesses if it is disclosed that a particular business donated money to the opposite side. Only such a culture of open disclosure can suck the black money out of politics.

Date: 17-11-16

Black money

State poll funding not a good idea

It is welcome that Prime Minister Modi wants a debate on transparency in political funding, as part of his drive to clean up black money. This is a prerequisite for any sustained and effective cure for black money. So long as India’s politics is systemically dependent on unaccounted money for its finances, there can be no decisive political will to eradicate black money. Political parties spend huge amounts of money every year and even more in election years. They report income that is only a fraction of what they spend. When the bulk of their spending is financed by unaccounted income, it compromises the integrity of governance, suborns the civil service, promotes crony capitalism and makes managing the government a decisive core competence of entrepreneurship. All this will change if the sources of political funding are made fully transparent.

Many people recommend state funding of elections as the best way to achieve transparency in political funding. This is a very bad idea. To begin with, India collects just about 16% of GDP as tax and state expenditure on many essential public goods such as primary healthcare and public health engineering is pitifully small. Public resources have to be channelled towards and not diverted from such essential services, and that, too, to finance something that already gets abundantly financed. Further, state funding of elections will not prevent parties from soliciting and getting undisclosed supplementary private funding, with associated implications. State funding is not the solution to opaque funding of politics in India.What will work is strict monitoring of expenditure by political parties and their functionaries at every level, starting with the panchayat, polling booth area and municipal ward. Every party should disclose its expenditure every month at every level. This should be open to challenge by rival parties, media, etc. The Election Commission could determine the actual expenditure and ask the parties to show source of income. Parties will have to collect money in the open. This will bring in transparency.

Date: 17-11-16

Simultaneous polls

If only state, central elections could coincide

The prime minister has suggested that the nation hold all elections to state and central legislatures all together, once every five years. The idea has definite appeal: it would save resources, both of the government on polling arrangements and of political parties that end up spending huge fortunes on poll campaigns. No less significant would be the focus the business of governance at the Centre could gain by not having to worry about how a measure proposed by the Centre would affect the outcome of a proximate state poll. But the idea of holding simultaneous state and central elections is not practical without constricting extant democratic space.

India started off with simultaneous elections to state assemblies and Parliament. These elections diverged as a result of political developments that terminated the life of certain legislatures before their full term, starting with the dismissal of the Communist government of Kerala two years into its term in 1959. Sometimes, a government could lose the confidence of the House because of serious differences of opinion within the ruling party or a realignment of political forces. Such developments are disruptive from a point of view of the expected full tenure of an elected House. However, such developments also reflect political conflicts organically integral to democracy in its current stage of evolution in the country.If we wish to curtail the natural evolution of democracy in the country and foist on it a straitjacket that forces assemblies to limp along with governments that have lost real legitimacy till the next round of elections turn up, that would be a bad idea. It is simpler and healthier to resolve that each level of government would function without worrying too much about how its working would impact elections to other levels.

Date: 17-11-16

घाटे से निजात!

सरकार द्वारा किए गए विमुद्रीकरण के बाद एक विचार यह उभर रहा है कि इस प्रक्रिया के बाद कर राजस्व में इजाफा ही नहीं होगा बल्कि रिजर्व बैंक के जरिये सरकार को भी जबरदस्त लाभ होने जा रहा है। यह एक नया तरीका होगा जहां राजकोषीय घाटे को विमुद्रीकरण की मदद से काफी कम किया जा सकता है। मुद्रा की आपूर्ति में कोई इजाफा नहीं होगा, इसलिए नए नोट छापकर मुद्रीकरण का मुद्रास्फीतिक प्रभाव शायद नजर न आए।अंकेक्षण के पहले नियम के अनुसार बैलेंस शीट में परिसंपत्तियों और देनदारियों के बीच संतुलन नजर आना चाहिए। आरबीआई की बैलेंस शीट में मुद्रा एक देनदारी है जिसके लिए धारक को भुगतान का वचन दिया जाता है। इस प्रकार सभी मुद्राएं परिसंपत्ति के समतुल्य होती हैं। आरबीआई की परिसंपत्ति में शुद्घ घरेलू परिसंपत्तियां (बुलियन और सरकारी बॉन्ड) और शुद्घ विदेशी परिसंपत्तियां (विदेशों में रखा बुलियन और मौद्रिक परिसंपत्ति) शामिल होती हैं।

Date: 17-11-16

काले धन के खिलाफ जिहाद या सियासी चाल?

काला धन आजादी के बाद से ही भारत में सार्वजनिक बहस का सदाबहार मुद्दा रहा है। इतने लंबे समय में भी इस मामले की अहमियत कम नहीं हुई हैै। लोगों का मानना है कि अपर्याप्त उपलब्धता, ऊंची कर दरों और अत्यधिक नियंत्रण से भ्रष्टाचार और काला धन जन्म लेता है। लिहाजा इनसे छुटकारा पाकर आप काले धन के सृजन का रास्ता बंद कर देंगे। लेकिन काले धन के लिए जिम्मेदार कारणों को दूर करने के लिए लागू तमाम सुधारों के बावजूद यह अब भी मौजूद है।

Date: 16-11-16

When government plays judge

Executive’s bid to have the final say in judicial appointments is alarming for democracy. Past experience tells us why.

By returning 43 out of 77 names recommended by the Supreme Court collegium for the appointment of judges in high courts, the Centre has discarded the principle of primacy of the Chief Justice of India (CJI) in appointments and transfers of the higher judiciary. In theory, the last word still belongs to the collegium, comprising of the CJI and four other senior judges of the Supreme Court (SC). In reality, the political executive is vetoing judicial selections.

Executive despotism in judicial appointments is a pre-condition for the debasement of democracy. The rejection of the collegium’s selections is akin to Indira Gandhi’s grievous assaults on judicial independence. In the 1970s-1980s,the government worked on the project of a “committed judiciary” by controlling judges’ appointments and transfers. The National Judicial Appointments Commission Act enacted by the NDA government gave the political executive, and two “eminent persons” chosen by it, final say in the appointment (or transfer) of judges. By striking down the NJAC, the court restored the collegium’s primacy.

It is undeniable that the collegium system bred improbity in some cases. The SC’s record in dispensing justice has also been patchy. It failed to give full justice to the victims of three state-supported riots: The 1984 anti-Sikh massacre, the 1992-93 Mumbai carnage and the 2002 Gujarat killings. Its judgement in the T.M.A. Pai Foundation case put fetters on the right to education. Justice A.K. Ganguly called this unconstitutional in his book Landmark Judgements. The 2013 NEET judgement, quashing single entrance tests for the medical course, impacted students. (The order was recently recalled by the SC). Some years ago, a CJI was publicly indicted for wrongfully taking up cases involving substantial corporate interests.

However, it was the SC that cancelled the 2G telecom spectrum licenses and the 214 allocations of coal blocks, granted dishonestly and illegally by the UPA regime. After May 2014, when several institutions meekly surrendered before the new government, the court upheld federal democracy and reinstated elected governments in Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.In other constitutional and statutory institutions, where appointments are controlled by the political executive, the party which wins an election gives positions to cronies, relatives and friends. The positions of state governors, heads of academic institutions, even vice-chancellors of many universities, is telling. Will it be any different if in the appointment of judges as well, the executive has the ultimate power?

The appointment of A.N. Ray as Chief Justice of India in 1973 by superceding three judges; the mass transfer of 16 high court judges during Emergency in 1976 and the second supercession of the senior-most judge in appointing the CJI in 1977, are some egregious subversions of the judiciary by Congress governments.The Janata government, elected to correct the wrongs of the Emergency, brought the Constitution (Forty-fifth Amendment) Bill 1978 (Bill No. 88 of 1978), providing that even the independence of the judiciary could be done away with through a public referendum. Fortunately, the proposed amendment failed for lack of majority in the Rajya Sabha.

Soon after being elected, the present government scuttled senior lawyer Gopal Subramanium’s appointment as a SC judge. As amicus, Subramanium had assisted in the investigation of the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case, leading to Amit Shah’s arrest. Though the collegium had the power of re-nominating Subramanium, in which case the government was bound to accept it, he withdrew his consent, citing government’s malafide intent.It will be interesting to see how the collegium deals with the current 43 names. The present crisis underscores the wide powers the government has, even under the collegium system. An adverse intelligence report, no matter how dubious, is enough to imperil the chances of even the most upright candidate.

Historically, chief ministers have had a significant say in the appointment of high court judges. The 14th report of the Law Commission of India (LCI) noted, “Chief minister has a hand direct or indirect in the matter of the appointment to the High Court Bench. The inevitable result has been that appointments are not always made on merit but on extraneous considerations of community, caste, political affiliations, and likes and dislikes have a free play.” The LCI’s 80th and 120th reports made similar observations. The Arrears Committee (1990) observed, “Chief ministers have come to think that filling up vacancies on the High Court Bench is a matter of patronage, political or otherwise.”

Though, on paper, between 1983 and 1993, only seven judges were appointed without the CJI’s consent, in reality, many judges “were actually foisted on the judiciary” (Chapter 5, Vol. 2 of The Arrears Report). The pernicious influence of the executive on judicial selections may partly explain the failure of several high courts in protecting civil liberties and fundamental rights and ruling decisively in cases of corruption.The current regime’s attempts to exercise the power of veto in judges’ selection will imperil our democracy. “Men are more often bribed by their loyalties and ambitions than by money,” said Justice Robert H. Jackson. Governments can appoint judges as governors, vice-president, even the president of India. The last thing we want them to do is to start appointing judges as well.

  Date: 16-11-16

Searching for an equilibrium

Questions recur about the rightful limits of judicial intervention in the matter of policy choices in the executive and legislative domains

In the 67th year of the Republic and 70th year of freedom, we find ourselves engaged in a heightened debate on the imperatives of preserving the constitutionally ordained jurisdictional equilibrium between the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the Indian state even as we celebrate the expansion of constitutional freedoms and the resilience of our democracy. At the heart of this debate is the reach of judicial review power exercised by the Supreme Court. Given the tenuous relationship between the executive and judiciary, the subject is increasingly relevant to the functioning of our constitutional democracy. While the sterling contribution of the court in asserting the inviolability of and expounding the right to dignity as the core constitutional value has been universally acclaimed, questions recur about the rightful limits of judicial intervention in the matter of policy choices in the executive and legislative domains.

The foundational principles

Some of the court’s transformative judgments are recalled to indicate the evolution of our constitutional order, premised on protection against the arbitrary exercise of power, non-discrimination and “constitutionalisation of socio-economic rights”. Establishing the procedural fairness and reasonableness test in Maneka Gandhi (1978) to determine the constitutionality of the exercise of executive power and declaring in M. Nagaraj (2006) that Articles 14 (right to equality), 19 (right to fundamental freedoms) and 21 (right to life) “stand at the pinnacle of the hierarchy of constitutional values, the court recognised that human dignity, equality and freedom were “conjoined, reciprocal and covalent values” (Sandra Liebenberg, 2005).While expanding human rights jurisprudence and recognising as fundamental the citizens’ right to food, health, education and clean environment, etc., the court in an expansive interpretation in V. Markendeya (1989) recognised the Directive Principles of State Policy as “the conscience of the Constitution” which give shape and meaning to fundamental rights. Having thus established the foundational principles for the exercise of a wider judicial review jurisdiction traceable to Articles 13, 32, 136, 142, 147 and 226 of the Constitution, the court declared that judicial review was a “constituent power” and an integral component of the unalterable basic structure of the Constitution (Kesavananda Bharati, 1973).

Expanding review jurisdiction

However, moving beyond the socio-economic rights, the court’s review has been invoked in “public interest” to question major decisions of the government concerning policy choices, for instance in what are now known as 2G spectrum and coal mine allocations cases. Challenge to proceedings of legislative assemblies and decisions of the Speaker have also been entertained by the court (Nabam Rebia, 2016). Recent decisions of the court voiding a constitutional amendment approved by Parliament to alter the procedure for appointment of judges (National Judicial Appointments Commission or NJAC judgment, 2016), exercising review powers in what is popularly known as the AFSPA — Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act — case to hold that the use of excessive force by the Manipur Police or the armed forces of the Union was not permissible, has extended the courts’ review jurisdiction to domains hitherto regarded as the exclusive preserve of the executive and legislatures.

Protagonists of a wide judicial review jurisdiction argue that it subserves the rule of law (Dicey, 1956), advances the cause of justice, is consistent with democracy and rules out only those choices that are obviously unreasonable and inconsistent with democracy (Ronald Dworkin, 1986). Socrates’s condemnation to death by Athenian democracy is recalled to argue that liberal democracy needs to protect itself against “the rule of the mob”. James Madison had argued for “auxiliary protections” to secure the fundamental liberties of citizens (The Federalist Papers).

Limiting the ambit

Even so, questions abound as to the rightful ambit of the court’s judicial review jurisdiction within the framework of parliamentary democracy premised on the assumption that people exercise their sovereignty through elected representatives and not through the unelected judges. “Judicial supremacy”, “judicial excessivism” or “judicial despotism” are seen as antithetical to democracy and contrary to its first principles. It is argued that representative democracy is as much a part of the basic structure of the Constitution and that judicial review, although constitutionally sanctioned, cannot be exercised to negate or subordinate other fundamental features of its basic structure.

In some of its recent judgments, the Supreme Court has itself cautioned against ever increasing expectations from it. In a substantive judgment in Santosh Singh (2016), a Division Bench of the court declined to entertain a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking a mandamus for the inclusion of moral science as a compulsory subject in the syllabus of school education. In an eloquent exposition in the NJAC case, Justice J. Chelameswar in his minority judgment rejected a distrust of the legislators in securing the constitutional fundamental and argued: “To assume or assert that judiciary alone is concerned with the preservation of liberties and does that job well is an assumption that is dogmatic, bereft of evidentiary basis and historically disproved.” In its opinion in a Presidential Reference, a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court had earlier opined that “Parliament and the legislatures, composed as they are of the representatives of the people, are supposed to know and be aware of the needs of the people and what is good and bad for them. The Court cannot sit in judgment over their wisdom”. In a recent order, the court declined to entertain a PIL seeking the court’s directions to restrain the Union government from incurring security and other expenses in respect of certain individuals in the State of Jammu and Kashmir on the ground that these writs are “judicially unmanageable”.

Looking for the middle

Benjamin Cardozo, the celebrated American jurist, had cautioned years ago that “there is no assurance that the rule of majority will be the expression of perfect reason when embodied in the Constitution or in statute. We ought not to expect more of it when embodied in the judgment of the Courts”. Nor can we forget that “… the great tides and currents which engulf the rest of men do not turn aside in their course and pass the judges by” (The Nature Of The Judicial Process, 1921). Scholars supporting limited judicial review have argued that courts are at best ‘platonic guardians’ of democracy and that “it is entirely incompatible with democracy for courts to define their mission as one of correcting elected officials who have strayed too far either from what the judges think is right or from what they claim they know (and the legislators do not) that the people really think is right” (John Hart Ely, On Constitutional Ground, 1996).

The ongoing debate concerning the limits of judicial review in a parliamentary democracy is anchored in profound philosophical issues concerning the nature of representative democracy and the inalienable fundamental human freedoms that need to be insulated against the “impulses of transient majorities”. In the light of our own experience of the political and judicial processes, it is legitimate to ask:

• Can the original justification for the court’s anti-majoritarian role be used to equate constitutional supremacy and judicial independence with “judicial supremacy”?

• How do we resolve disagreements over “constitutional-interpretative judgments” in the framework of a functioning democracy, given the disclaimer of judicial infallibility by the court itself?

• Assuming a decline in credibility of the political executive, can the judiciary act as “co-governor” of the nation?

• Where do we locate the “equilibrium between the Scylla of insensitive detachment suggesting indifference and the Charybdis of unwarranted intrusion” to fix the frontiers of judicial power in a constitutional democracy without being on the wrong side of the “democratic faith”?

As we reflect on these questions, it seems self-evident that in the articulation of constitutional principles, Pascal’s spirit of “self-search and self-reproach” reflected in recent judgments of the Supreme Court will best subserve to strengthen the institutions of India’s liberal democracy and sustain over time the otherwise wide ambit of judicial review, so that the judiciary remains “a light unto the nations” without being a “sheriff unto the nations” (José A. Cabranes, 2015).For the moment, we must accept that the weight of the court’s authority and acceptance of the extensive reach of its judicial imprimatur is best explained in terms of popular trust in its moral and intellectual integrity rather than in a stretched philosophy of constitutionalism. The decline of Parliament as the highest forum of our democracy, the perceived insensitivity on the part of the bureaucracy to the pressing priorities of the people at large, a general distrust of executive power and loss of faith, generally speaking, in the moral and ideological integrity of the political class collectively account for an expanded remit of judicial review.

Ashwani Kumar is a Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court and former Union Law Minister