“Justice Breyer’s visit to India”:Relevance and Context

The visit of Justice Breyer of US,to India, has much relevance in the context in which our judiciary prevails in India today.A few weeks ago, two judges of the Supreme court of India categorically stated that all pronouncements made by the judges in a judgment will not become precedents but only in the context in which they were made and relevant to the point of law in question.And most recently,Judges A.K.Mathur and Markandey Katju have pronounced a land mark judgment according to which the overreach of judiciary beyond its jurisdiction was specifically called upon to confine itself to its limits.It means the judicial activism overstepping its limits was not found favour with the judges.But the Chief Justice of the Supreme court of India,Mr.Balakrishnan has stated that the observations made by Justice Mathur and Justice Markandey Katju will not bind the Supremecourt.But we generally welcome the selfrealisation made by the judges of the Supremecourt.

In the above context,Justice Breyer of US Supreme Court’s visit to India has much relevance.He has stated that in the US there is no rift between legislature and judiciary in the US and the Judges are not criticised for their judicial activism there.Besides,the Us legislature has powers to amend the constitution to over-rule a Supreme court judgement but such an amendment requires a two-thirds majority in the Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states.In the last 200 years, the constitution was amended only 27 times.Another vital question that he answered was the cretaria for admitting a PIL (Public Interest Litigation ), by the person who has been directly affected, is followed.Regarding corruption in the judiciary, he abhors it to the core and a corruptive judge should be ashamed of it., since he has a face.Again as to the abolition of capital punishment, he has stated that it is upto the legislature to decide.One thing Justice Breyer praised about us is the mechanism of Alternative Dispute Resolution adopted by courts.

One thing is clear from the observations made by Justice Breyer.That we need to do something concretely to curb Judicial activism.Either we have to ignore or our legislatures should take the initiative instead of criticising the judicial activism. And our judges should be reminded that they have a face, before indulging in any corruptive practice!