Public Interest Litigation - concept of constitutional duty

Supreme Court of India
Bandhua Mukti Morcha vs Union Of India & Others on 16 December, 1983
Equivalent citations: 1984 AIR 802, 1984 SCR (2) 67

Bench: Bhagwati, P.N.
           PETITIONER:
BANDHUA MUKTI MORCHA

    Vs.

RESPONDENT:
UNION OF INDIA & OTHERS

DATE OF JUDGMENT16/12/1983

BENCH:
BHAGWATI, P.N.
PATHAK, R.S.
SEN, AMARENDRA NATH (J)

PER PATHAK, J CONCURRING
     (1) Public     Interest Litigation  in  its  present    form
constitutes a  new chapter  in our  judicial system.  It has
acquired  a   significant  degree   of    importance   in     the
jurisprudence practised     by our     courts     and  has  evoked  a
lively, if somewhat con-
80
troversial, response  in legal    circles, in  the  media     and
among the  general public. In our country, this new class of
litigation is  justified by  its protagonists  on the  basis
generally of  vast areas in our population of illiteracy and
poverty, of  social and     economic backwardness,     and  of  an
insufficient awareness    and appreciation  of individual     and
collective rights.  These handicaps  have denied millions of
our countrymen access to justice. Public interest litigation
is said to possess the potential or providing such access in
the milieu of a new ethos, in which participating sectors in
the administration of justice cooperate in the creation of a
system    which    promises  legal     relief     without  cumbersome
formality and  heavy expenditure.  In the  result, the legal
organisation has  taken on  a radically     new dimension,     and
correspondingly     new  perspectives  are     opening  up  before
judges and  lawyers and     State Law  agencies  in  the  tasks
before them. A crusading zeal is abroad, viewing the present
as an opportunity to awaken the political and legal order to
the  objectives      of  social   justice    projected   in     our
constitutional system.    New slogans  fill the  air, and     new
phrases have  entered the legal dictionary, and one hears of
the  justicing     system  being     galvanised  into  supplying
justice to  the socioeconomic disadvantages. These urges are
responsible for     the birth of new judicial concepts. and the
expanding horizon  calpower.  They  claim  to  represent  an
increasing emphasis  on social    welfare     and  a     progressive
humanitarianism, To the mind trained in the certainty of the
law, of     defined principles,  of binding  precedent, and the
common law  doctrine of stare decisis, the future is fraught
with confusion    and disorder  in the  legal world and severe
strains in  the constitutional    system. At the lowest, there
is an  uneasy doubt  about where  we are  going.  If  public
interest litigation is to command broad acceptance attention
must be paid to certain relevant considerations. The history
of human  experience shows  that when  a revolution in ideas
and in action enters the life of a nation, the nascent power
so  released   possesses  the    potential  of  throwing     the
prevailing  social   order  into  disarray.  In     a  changing
society, wisdom     dictates that    reform should  emerge in the
existing polity     as an    ordered change    produce through     its
institution. Moreover,    the  pace  of  change  needs  to  be
handled     with  care  lest  the    institutions  themselves  be
endangered. [152 F-H; 153 A-C; 153 G; 154 A-B]
     1:2  Like     the  Warren   Court's    affirmative   action
programmes for    the benefit of minorities and other socially
or economically     disadvantaged interests through the avenues
of Public Law, the courts in India, are beginning to apply a
similar concept     of constitutional  duty.  The    doctrine  of
standing has  been  enlarged  in  India     to  provide,  where
reasonably possible,  access to     justice to large sectors of
people for  whom so  far it had been a matter of despair. It
is time     indeed for  the law to do so. In large measure, the
traditional  conception      of  adjudication  represented     the
socioeconomic vision  prevailing at the turn of the century.
In India,  as the  consciousness of  social  justice  spread
though our  multi-layered  social  order,  the    constitution
began to  come under  increasing pressure from social action
groups petitioning  on behalf  of the  under privileged     and
deprived sections  of society  for the    fulfillment of their
aspirations. Despite  the varying  fortunes of the number of
cases of  public interest  litigation which have entered the
Supreme Court,    Public Interest Litigation constitutes today
a significant  segment of the court's docket. [154 D: 156 A-
C]