Directions : Read the following passage and answer the questions.
In their traditional mould, a court adjudicates disputes between parties-and in that context examines the causes brought before them-where there were instances of violation of constitutional rights of the underprivileged .This was extended to apathy in enforcing environmental law. The court took on the task of examining causes. The PIL was born!
With time, the growth of this kind of intervention by the court gave birth to organisations whose objective was to file PILs to champion public causes. As intervention of the courts increased. PILs increasingly became at time a vehicle for “eminent” members of civil society to clothe their point of view in a constitutional garb and seek its enforcement as enforcement of pseudo-constitutional rights. Undeterred by the consequences of monumental failures of court monitored investigations such as the Jain Hawala case and the 2G case, petitions continue to be filled seeking court monitored investigations into all and sundry.
Left leaning economic philosophies which have been abandoned in their country of origin, and whose protagonists have lost at the hustings, are attempted to be fed into the system through judicial edict. Whether it be privatisation or nuclear power generation, creation of new highways, new ports or new airports- the court is asked to step in and prevent the elected executive from implementing its policies.
2009-2014 saw a dramatic rise in such PILs – as governance shrank, the remit of the court’s power seemed to grow, for nature abhors a vacuum. This intrusive jurisdiction had, at some point, to be tempered. The need for a course correction was apparent to those who dispassionately examined the working of the institution. And that is what has happened.
Justice is not a cloistered virtue, and the judgements of the court must be open to public debate. Criticising the judges and condemning the institution by ascribing motives to the judges and accusing them of lack of intellectual integrity is quite another matter. The Jain Hawala case judgements and the 2G judgements have exposed the dangers of court monitored investigations, where reputations are destroyed and businesses laid waste, only to end in mass acquittals. The coal allocation judgment and the Goa mining judgement have generously contributed to bringing down the GDP. Yet any suggestion that the judges, who dealt with those cases, acted out of anything other than the highest of motives is preposterous.
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