Revision summary
Maneka Gandhi and PIL made the Supreme Court a place where social and environmental policy is often first written as rights. Vishaka guidelines, pollution and food orders, and federal cases such as Bommai are policy evolution by judgment. The Court fills vacuums left by the executive and legislature; that is the empirical basis of the statement. Electoral democracy still assigns general policy to removable legislatures. Agreement is therefore yes for rights-based gap-filling, and no for the Court as a general policy government.
Model answer
Introduction
The Supreme Court of India has become, in important areas, a forum where public policy is shaped through rights litigation, continuing mandamus, and guidelines that operate until Parliament acts. Agreement with the statement should be partial: the Court has evolved policy in gaps, and it is not the authorised legislature.
Body
Why the statement is largely true
- After Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India (1978), Article 21 became a due-process style clause, which opened health, livelihood, environment, and privacy as judicial policy fields.
- Public interest litigation under Justices P. N. Bhagwati and V. R. Krishna Iyer lowered standing and let the Court hear collective injuries.
- Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan (1997) laid down workplace sexual-harassment guidelines as law until the 2013 statute, which is policy evolution in a vacuum.
- Environment benches, the right-to-food litigation in PUCL, vehicle and pollution orders, and forest-governance orders have set detailed regimes that look like departmental policy.
- Kesavananda and S. R. Bommai evolved the policy of constitutional identity and of federal emergency, which bind later governments.
- Foucault’s governmentality is a warning: courts that manage rations, emissions, and asylums become part of the administrative state, not only its checker.
Why the statement must be qualified
- Policy evolution in a democracy belongs first to legislatures that Dahl’s polyarchy can remove. Judges are not removable by the same electoral test.
- The Court often acts because the executive left a gap; that is residual policy, not a claim that the Court should write the annual budget.
- Separation of powers, the political-question habit, and later benches that have stepped back on some economic matters show self-check.
- Austin’s social-revolution Constitution invited judicial partnership with Parts III and IV; it did not repeal Article 245.
- Rawls’s basic structure is a set of liberties and fair procedures, not a licence for the judiciary to choose every distributive scheme.
Justified answer
- Yes, over the years the Supreme Court has become a forum for policy evolution in rights, environment, gender workplace rules, and constitutional federal limits.
- No, it has not lawfully become the only or the best forum for ordinary economic and administrative policy.
- The justified position is a rights-protecting, gap-filling court inside a parliamentary federation, not a third government of general policy.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD SC[Supreme Court] --> R[Article 21 expansion] SC --> PIL[PIL and continuing mandamus] SC --> G[Guidelines Vishaka] P[Parliament] --> L[Statutes and budgets] SC --> Q[Not a substitute parliament]
Conclusion
The Supreme Court has become a forum for policy evolution where rights and institutional vacuums required rules, as in Maneka, Vishaka, environment, and food litigation. Justification stops at general legislation and budgets, which remain Parliament’s. The Court is a constitutional policy forum, not a substitute parliament.
Quick related
Students also ask
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The role of the President of India becomes more significant during a minority government and a coalition government. Explain
Next question on this syllabus topic (2021 · Q6(b)). View answer →
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Is policy by guidelines undemocratic?
It is under-democratic if it lasts without a statute. Vishaka itself asked Parliament to act. The 2013 Act is the proper completion.
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Can the Court run ministries?
It can order legality and rights-consistent administration. Day-to-day allocation of scarce funds remains the executive’s, reviewable for rights, not replaceable as a general planner.
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