SC cracks the whip on IXth Schedule

Supreme Court of India on 11th January 2007 delivered a significant judgment that is sure to wake up the politicians who run our parliament and the government. SC essentially made it abundantly clear through its 9-judge Constitutional Bench’s near unanimous (8-1) judgment that it alone has the right to interpret the Constitutionality of acts passed by the Parliament and that the Union and State governments cannot slide statutes into the IX schedule of the Constitution for the sole reason of avoiding judicial scrutiny. It is heartening to note that in its judgment, the bench has noted that any statute violating basic structure of the Constitution and fundamental rights afforded to citizens under the same.

This judgment essentially throws open the floodgates for a lot of potential lawsuits challenging the validity of umpteen numbers of statutes that politicians managed to stuff in the IX schedule – one of the most prominent being the one reserving 69% seats in Tamil Nadu which directly contradicts SC’s judgment limiting all reservations to no more than 50%.

While I do believe that in a democracy, the will of elected representatives should prevail, the statutes like the anti-defection law make it all but impossible for our representatives to vote their conscience and they have to toe the party-line. Thus we end up depending on the unelected judiciary to do the job of protecting and strengthening our constitutional rights.

Let us hope that our politicians leran their lesson and apply their minds to the laws and legislations they pass.