The article, SC being increasingly asked to go beyond text of law: CJI by Dhananjay Mahapatra. Opines that in contemporary India, the judiciary finds itself at a crossroads between traditional legal interpretation and the pressing need for proactive governance. Chief Justice of India (CJI) Bhushan R Gavai’s recent remarks highlight a fundamental shift in how India's apex court perceives its role in addressing the nation's challenges when conventional legal frameworks fall short.
The Supreme Court's evolution from a passive interpreter of law to an active participant in governance represents one of the most significant transformations in India's constitutional framework. This shift reflects the Court's recognition that strict textual interpretation of laws may not always serve justice or address the complex realities of modern India.
Bhushan R Gavai’s observation that the judiciary is "increasingly called upon to go beyond mere textual application of law" captures this paradigm shift. The Court now engages with the deeper purposes and consequences of legal provisions, moving beyond literal interpretation to consider broader implications for society and governance.
The Supreme Court's proactive approach has led to remarkable expansion of fundamental rights. Through creative interpretation and judicial activism, the Court has recognized rights not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, including: The right to education, privacy rights, rights related to gender, equality and choice of partners, environmental protection rights, rights of disabled persons. This expansion demonstrates how judicial interpretation can evolve to meet contemporary needs while remaining grounded in constitutional principles.
Bhushan R Gavai’s recent visit to Nepal's Supreme Court provides valuable context for understanding this judicial evolution. His remarks there about supporting verdicts that prevent indefinite delays in legislative processes illustrate how modern judiciaries must sometimes intervene to ensure democratic governance functions effectively. The Nepal example highlights how courts can serve as guardians of democratic processes, ensuring that constitutional mechanisms don't become tools for indefinite postponement of necessary governance decisions.
Perhaps nowhere is India's judicial evolution more evident than in environmental law. The Supreme Court has positioned itself as an "environmentally conscious institution," developing a sophisticated jurisprudence that has significantly shaped environmental policy in the 21st century. This environmental focus demonstrates how courts can drive policy innovation when legislative and executive action proves insufficient to address pressing challenges like climate change and ecological degradation.
Challenges and Constitutional Balance
What happens when the most powerful law-making body in a democracy is the one that was never elected? India's Supreme Court has quietly transformed itself from a referee of laws into their primary author, raising profound questions about the nature of democratic governance in the 21st century.
The Court's expansion of rights—privacy, education, environmental protection—reads like a progressive wish list. But here lies democracy's most seductive trap: when unelected institutions deliver outcomes we desire, do we stop questioning their authority? The Supreme Court has become India's most effective progressive force, but this effectiveness comes at democracy's expense.
Consider the irony: a institution designed to check democratic excess has become democracy's substitute. When legislators fail to legislate and executives fail to execute, courts step in. But judicial solutions, however elegant, bypass the messy, inefficient, yet essential process of democratic consensus-building.
Perhaps most troubling is what goes unsaid in celebrating judicial activism. Every judicial "innovation" represents a democratic failure—a moment when elected representatives abdicated their responsibility to govern. The Court's environmental jurisprudence fills a legislative vacuum, but it also perpetuates the very dysfunction it seeks to remedy.
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| SC being increasingly asked to go beyond text of law: CJI by Dhananjay Mahapatra; in The Times of India, September 2025. |
Celebrating judicial activism while mourning democratic decay misses the point. Instead of asking how to restore democratic governance, we might need to ask what legitimate authority looks like in an age when traditional democratic institutions cannot meet society's needs.
The Unasked Questions
The most profound questions remain unexamined in discussions of judicial activism:
Who guards the guardians? If courts can rewrite laws based on evolving interpretations, what limits their power beyond their own self-restraint?
What is law? If legal texts don't constrain judicial decisions, do laws have any fixed meaning, or are they merely suggestions waiting for judicial clarification?
Is democracy failing? The judiciary's expanding role might not represent democratic evolution but democratic collapse—a system so dysfunctional that unelected institutions must perform its basic functions.
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