By D N Singh
It has become an invisible yet palpable development under the present political dispensation in the country where an attempt seems in the offing to reduce the role of the judiciary as mandated by the Constitution.
In fact, the flash in the pan was the reported statement of the Honourable Rajya Sabha chairman, Jagdeep Dhankar in Rajya Sabha.
In an apparent swipe at a statement by Sonia Gandhi, the Congress’s leader of the Parliamentary Party, where she saw the premonition about an attempt as she has been quoted “A troubling new development is the calculated attempt underway to delegitimise the judiciary. Ministers – even a high constitutional authority – have been enlisted to making speeches attacking the judiciary on various grounds.”
Which in essence was a kind of wake-up call from the opposition that, by cutting down the legitimate powers of the judiciary it has been pre-empted to take the say of the executive a notch higher thus delegitimising the judiciary which, otherwise, entitles the people having high constitutional position to attack the judiciary.
Even there have been instances when leaders making speeches aimed against judiciary.
Which also appear to be a quest for overbearing and unchallenged power of the executive/corporate combine where the judiciary only plays a second fiddle.
It hardly requires any mention here that, the sovereignty of the Parliament is never be demeaned as long as it functions well, giving voices to criticise the people in power and all respect the rights of the opposition to raise such questions.
It cannot be merely an institution where only the ruling can railroad its political agenda through a brute majority.
It is said that ‘power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’. It is constitutionally mandated that judiciary has its own powers and cannot be cowed down by supremacy of the constitution.
But what is worthy of a mention here is that, by extending more than required sovereignty to parliament one cannot assume that, the power of executive and judiciary can be curtailed.
The judiciary is not to function by the whims of the legislative enjoying absolute power.
