Never before had the head of the judiciary publicly and repeatedly expressed exasperation over the government’s continued indifference to the judiciary’s concerns.
AS THIS ISSUE GOES TO PRESS, THE CHIEF Justice of India T.S. Thakur would have retired, on January 3, after 13 months in office. His tenure witnessed perhaps the most bitter and open struggle for supremacy between the government and the judiciary since Independence. Never before had the head of the judiciary publicly and repeatedly expressed his exasperation over the government’s continued indifference and insensitivity to the judiciary’s concerns. As the CJI, Justice Thakur was more than accommodating of the government’s compulsions in various litigation before the court in which it was a party. But as he retired, he must have wondered what really prevented the government from reciprocating the judiciary’s respect for the separation of powers and the system of checks and balances that defines the working of the Indian Constitution.
Right from May 2014, when the Narendra Modi government came to power at the Centre with a comfortable majority, it was widely believed that the relationship between the executive and the judiciary would enter a turbulent phase. For, a government with a brute majority in Parliament is, by nature, likely to look at a counter majoritarian institution like the Supreme Court with suspicion and seek to clip its wings.
Thus, the very first legislative measure, the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC), which apparently enjoyed all-party support in Parliament and across State Assemblies, was declared unconstitutional and quashed by the Supreme Court’s Constitution Bench in October 2015 as violative of the independence of the judiciary. This meant a return to the collegium system of appointing judges to the higher judiciary, in which the judiciary—and not the executive—has primacy.
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How Not To Handle An Epidemic
The lockdowns were meant to buy time to put in place appropriate health measures and contain the coronavirus’ spread, but they have failed to achieve the objective and heaped immense misery on the marginalised sections of society. India is still in the exponential phase of the COVID-19 infection and community transmission is a reality that the government refuses to accept.
Tragedy on foot
As the COVID-19-induced lockdown cuts the ground beneath their feet in Tamil Nadu, thousands of migrant workers are trudging along the highway to the relative safety of their upcountry homes.
Sarpanchs as game changers
Odisha manages to keep COVID-19 well under control because of the strong participation of panchayati raj institutions and the community at the grass-roots level under the leadership of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
Scapegoating China
As the COVID-19 death rate spikes and the economy tanks in the United States, Donald Trump and his advisers target China and the World Health Organisation with an eye to winning the forthcoming presidential election.
New worries
Kerala’s measured approach to the pandemic and lockdown has yielded results. But it still has to grapple with their huge economic impact on its economy, which it feels the Centre’s special financial relief package does little to alleviate.
No love lost for labour
Taking advantage of the lockdown and the inability of workers to organise protests, many State governments introduce sweeping changes to labour laws to the detriment of workers on the pretext of reviving production and boosting the economy.
Capital's Malthusian moment
In a world that needs substantial reorienting of production and distribution, Indian capital is resorting to a militant form of moribund neoliberalism to overcome its current crisis. In this pursuit of profit, it is ready and willing to throw into mortal peril millions whom it adjudicates as not worth their means—an admixture of social Darwinism born of capital’s avarice and brutalism spawned by Hindutva. .
Understanding migration
When governments and their plans are found to be blatantly wanting in addressing reverse migration, exercises such as the Ekta Parishad’s survey of migrant workers throughout India can be useful to work out creative long-lasting solutions.
Waiting for Jabalpur moment
The Supreme Court’s role in ensuring executive accountability during the ongoing lockdown leaves much to be desired. Standing in shining contrast is the record of some High Courts.
An empty package
The Modi regime, which has been unable to control the COVID-19 infection, restore economic activity and provide relief to millions exposed to starvation, trains its sights on Indian democracy, making use of the panic generated by fear and a lockdown that forecloses paths of resistance.
