Constitution has not authorized the judges to sit in judgment on the wisdom of what Congress and the executive branch do

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

CIVIL ORIGINAL JURISDICTION

WRIT PETITION (CIVIL) NO.104 OF 2015

ANOOP BARANWAL … PETITIONER

VERSUS

UNION OF INDIA … RESPONDENT

WITH

WRIT PETITION(CIVIL) NO. 1043 OF 2017

WRIT PETITION(CIVIL) NO.569 OF 2021

AND

WRIT PETITION(CIVIL) NO.998 OF 2022

J U D G M E N T

K.M. JOSEPH, J.

88. The learned Solicitor General is right therefore that judicial restraint may be a virtue in the elevated region of constitutional law. Being the grundnorm, it is indeed a rarefied field where the court must tread wearily (See Divisional Manager, Aravali Golf Club and Another v. Chander Hass and Another24). This Court indeed has admonished against the court itself running the Government. In Asif Hameed v. State of J & K, 25 no doubt this court refers to the following observations of Frankfurter, J. in para 18: “All power is, in Madison's phrase, “of an encroaching nature”. Judicial power is not immune against this human weakness. It also must be on guard against encroaching beyond its proper bounds, and not the less so since the only restraint upon it is self-restraint.... Rigorous observance of the difference between limits of power and wise exercise of power — between questions of authority and questions of prudence — requires the most alert appreciation of this decisive but subtle relationship of two concepts that too easily 24 (2008) 1 SCC 683 25 (1989) Suppl.2 SCC 364 125 coalesce. No less does it require a disciplined will to adhere to the difference. It is not easy to stand aloof and allow want of wisdom to prevail to disregard one's own strongly held view of what is wise in the conduct of affairs. But it is not the business of this Court to pronounce policy. It must observe a fastidious regard for limitations on its own power, and this precludes the court's giving effect to its own notions of what is wise or politic. That self-restraint is of the essence in the observance of the judicial oath, for the Constitution has not authorized the judges to sit in judgment on the wisdom of what Congress and the executive branch do.”