Separation of powers & dispute redressal

Judicial legislation is law-making by courts: binding rules framed under Articles 32, 141 and 142 to fill a gap the legislature has left, as distinct from interpreting a statute that already exists.

Meaning and examples

• Vishaka (1997) laid down workplace sexual-harassment norms that held the field until Parliament legislated in 2013; D.K. Basu (1996) set arrest safeguards; Prakash Singh (2006) directed police reform.
• In each, the Court performed the classic legislative function, framing rules of general application, justified as protecting fundamental rights in a vacuum.

Passive euthanasia and the living will

• Aruna Shanbaug (2011): passive euthanasia permitted in principle, case by case, with High Court approval, because no statute existed.
• Common Cause (2018): a Constitution Bench held the right to die with dignity part of Article 21 and recognised advance medical directives, prescribing medical boards and a magistrate's role.
• 2023 modification: the Court simplified its own scheme, with smaller boards, time limits and easier attestation, because the 2018 procedure had proved unworkable.
• Both rulings are judicial legislation in full: the substantive right, the procedure and the safeguards all came from the Bench, not Parliament.

Legitimacy: for and against

• For: rights cannot wait on a silent Parliament; the Law Commission had itself recommended regulating passive euthanasia; the guidelines are expressly interim, inviting legislation.
• For: end-of-life questions concern dignity and bodily autonomy, squarely within the Court's Article 21 jurisdiction.
• Against: it strains separation of powers and bypasses democratic deliberation on a morally contested subject.
• Against: court-written procedures are hard for hospitals and families to use, as the need for the 2023 revision itself showed.

Way forward

• A comprehensive law on end-of-life care, wider palliative care, and hospital ethics committees to make dignity in dying a practical right.

Judicial legislation is a stop-gap that protects rights when Parliament is silent; the euthanasia rulings show both its value and its limits, and the lasting answer lies in considered legislation.

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Indian federalism is a 'holding-together' design: a strong Centre with flexible units, built to keep a multilingual, multi-ethnic country united by accommodating identity rather than suppressing it.

Extent of success

• Linguistic reorganisation from 1956 turned language from a threat into a basis of statehood; Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand (2000) and Telangana (2014) answered regional demands.
• Articles 29–30 and the Eighth Schedule (22 languages) protect cultural and linguistic identity; accords such as Mizoram (1986) converted insurgency into constitutional politics.
• Strains persist: ethnic conflict in Manipur, language controversies, fiscal centralisation through cesses outside the divisible pool, and Governor–state friction.
• Verdict: the framework has largely succeeded, but accommodation is uneven and depends heavily on the Centre's goodwill.

Role of asymmetric federalism

• Instruments: Sixth Schedule autonomous councils, special provisions under Articles 371 to 371J, Fifth Schedule areas and differentiated Union Territory arrangements.
• Asymmetry protects land, customary law, culture and local institutions in the North-East and tribal areas, and eased insurgencies by offering self-rule within the Union.
• It also invites demands for parity and can freeze arrangements that need review; asymmetry must therefore be a living, negotiated instrument.

Making dispute resolution effective

• Inter-State Council (Article 263): regular meetings, a permanent secretariat and standing committees to mediate before disputes reach litigation.
• Water: a standing inter-state water tribunal with benches, data-based river basin authorities and time limits, in place of tribunals that take decades.
• Fiscal: a GST Council dispute-settlement mechanism, which Article 279A(11) itself contemplates.
• Zonal Councils with agendas and follow-up; time-bound Central mediation; sparing use of Article 131 suits.

Indian federalism has held diversity together well; institutionalised dialogue and faster, rule-based dispute resolution will keep diversity a strength rather than a fault line.

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The US Constitution divides legislative, executive and judicial power among separately constituted branches held in balance; India fuses the executive with the legislature and relies on an independent judiciary and constitutional bodies for balance.

Separation of powers: India and the USA

• India: the Council of Ministers sits in Parliament and is collectively responsible to the Lok Sabha (Article 75(3)); separation is functional, not watertight.
• Indian checks: judicial review and the basic structure doctrine (Kesavananda Bharati, 1973), of which separation of powers is a part; Article 50's directive to separate the judiciary from the executive; independent bodies such as the ECI and CAG.
• USA: a separately elected President, a Congress that alone legislates and appropriates, and courts with judicial review since Marbury v. Madison (1803); veto, override, Senate confirmation and impeachment keep the branches in check.
• Even the US model is not absolute: executive orders, treaties and judicial policymaking blur the lines; the difference is one of degree and design.

Prime Minister versus President

• Legislative power: a PM with a majority controls the House agenda, budget and lawmaking, reinforced by the anti-defection law; the President must bargain with Congress and faces gridlock under divided government.
• Executive power: the President commands foreign and military policy and appoints the executive branch (subject to Senate confirmation), personal authority the PM shares with Cabinet.
• Tenure: the President serves a fixed four-year term; the PM lasts only while the Lok Sabha's confidence lasts, so coalition partners, party and federal limits constrain him.
• Emergency instruments: the PM can advise ordinances (Article 123) and President's rule in states; the President relies on veto and executive orders and has no ordinance power.
• Verdict: a majority PM often wields more domestic legislative power; the US President enjoys more secure tenure and greater personal executive command.

Each model trades stability for accountability differently; India's strength is the executive's daily answerability to Parliament, which must be kept robust for the balance to hold.

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Articles 323A and 323B, added by the 42nd Amendment (1976), let legislatures create tribunals so that specialised disputes need not queue before overburdened courts.

Why tribunals alongside courts

• Speed and cost: simpler procedure and cheaper access — service disputes before the CAT; the NGT, set up in 2010 for expeditious disposal of environmental cases.
• Expertise: technical members bring domain knowledge — company law (NCLT), securities (SAT), environment (NGT).
• Docket relief: High Courts are freed of routine service, tax and regulatory matters.
• Caveat: L. Chandra Kumar (1997) kept tribunals under High Court review, and executive control over appointments has repeatedly weakened their independence.

Impact of the 2021 rationalisation

• The Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021 abolished appellate bodies such as the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal and the Intellectual Property Appellate Board, moving their work to High Courts and commercial courts, and prescribed uniform selection, tenure and service conditions for the rest.
• Gains: fewer overlapping forums, uniform rules, lower establishment costs.
• Costs: heavier load on congested High Courts, loss of specialist benches, and vacancies that keep surviving tribunals short-handed.
• Independence unresolved: the Court had struck down the same four-year tenure and minimum-age rules in Madras Bar Association (2021), yet the Act re-enacted them; a National Tribunals Commission remains pending.

Tribunals remain indispensable for specialised, speedy justice, but the 2021 reform rationalised structures more than it secured independence — a National Tribunals Commission with judicial primacy would complete it.

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Both are alternative dispute resolution forums: Lok Adalats settle disputes by compromise under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987; arbitral tribunals adjudicate under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996.

What they are

• Lok Adalat: organised by legal services authorities from taluk to national level; it takes up pending and pre-litigation matters and helps parties settle amicably, with no court fee.
• Arbitral tribunal: arbitrators appointed under an arbitration agreement who hear evidence and decide the dispute on merits by applying the law, usually in commercial contracts.

How they differ

• Consent: a Lok Adalat award needs both parties to accept the settlement; arbitration needs only a prior agreement to arbitrate and binds the losing party.
• Method and cost: conciliation by a panel, free and quick, versus adjudication by expert arbitrators chosen and paid by the parties.
• Finality: a Lok Adalat award is a deemed decree with no appeal; an arbitral award can be set aside only on narrow grounds under Section 34.
• Hybrid: Permanent Lok Adalats for public utility services (Section 22-B) may decide on merits if conciliation fails.

Civil or criminal?

• Lok Adalats take civil matters and only compoundable criminal offences; non-compoundable offences and divorce are excluded.
• Arbitration is confined to civil and commercial disputes; criminal liability and matrimonial status are not arbitrable.

Lok Adalats give quick, consensual justice to ordinary litigants and arbitration gives expert adjudication to commerce; both ease pendency, while serious crime stays with the courts.

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Public interest litigation grew in the late 1970s and 1980s when Justices P.N. Bhagwati and V.R. Krishna Iyer relaxed locus standi so that any public-spirited person could move the court under Articles 32 and 226 on behalf of those who could not.

Why PIL grew

• Post-Emergency legitimacy: after ADM Jabalpur (1976), the Court sought to reclaim its role as guardian of rights.
• Access: poverty, illiteracy and distance kept victims away, so the Court accepted letters as petitions and appointed commissions to find facts.
• Executive and legislative inaction: on bonded labour (Bandhua Mukti Morcha), undertrials (Hussainara Khatoon), pollution (M.C. Mehta) and workplace harassment (Vishaka), the Court filled the gap.
• An expansive Article 21 after Maneka Gandhi (1978) turned life and liberty into a charter for dignity, environment and livelihood.
• Tools of enforcement: Article 142 'complete justice', continuing mandamus and monitoring committees, as in the T.N. Godavarman forest case.
• Civil society and media used PIL as a low-cost route to policy change.

The 'most powerful judiciary' claim

• For: the Court can strike down constitutional amendments under the basic structure doctrine — as in the NJAC case (2015) — appoints judges through the collegium, and issues detailed directions on air quality, forests and police reform; few courts combine such reach with such easy access.
• Against: power on paper is not power in effect — orders on pollution, encroachment and prison conditions are routinely unimplemented; pendency is heavy; the Court has neither purse nor sword and depends on executive compliance.
• Comparison: the US Supreme Court and Germany's Constitutional Court also review legislation but with narrower standing and fewer policy interventions; India's Court is distinctive for accessibility and breadth, not enforcement capacity.
• Concerns: publicity-driven and frivolous PILs, overreach into policy, and inconsistency between benches have invited criticism and self-imposed limits.

PIL has made the Supreme Court exceptionally accessible and expansive — arguably the most wide-ranging constitutional court — but its power rests on legitimacy and self-restraint rather than force, and its promise depends on keeping the voiceless at the centre.

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Democracy is rule under law, and law restrains power only when a court beyond executive and legislative reach can enforce it. Judicial independence is thus a condition of democracy, not a privilege of judges.

Why a prerequisite

• Judicial review keeps elected majorities within constitutional limits.
• Fundamental rights, enforceable under Article 32, are only as strong as the impartial court behind them.
• Union-State and citizen-State disputes need an umpire that all sides trust.

Constitutional guarantees

• Tenure: removal only for proved misbehaviour or incapacity, by special majority in both Houses (Article 124(4)).
• Pay: judges' salaries are charged on the Consolidated Fund of India (Article 112), beyond the annual vote.
• Insulation: judges' conduct cannot be discussed in Parliament except on a removal motion (Article 121); retired Supreme Court judges cannot practise (Article 124(7)); Article 50 directs separation from the executive; contempt powers protect authority.
• Doctrine: independence is part of the basic structure; the Second Judges Case (1993) gave judges primacy in appointments, and the NJAC Act was struck down in 2015.

Strains in practice

• Opaque collegium choices, executive delay in clearing names, heavy vacancies and pendency, and post-retirement posts that invite doubts of favour.

Independence must travel with accountability: transparent appointments, published reasons and credible in-house discipline. A judiciary both free and answerable is the keystone of constitutional democracy.

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Article 39A directs the State to provide free legal aid so that poverty or other disability does not deny justice, and the Supreme Court reads legal aid into the fair procedure guaranteed by Article 21.

Who is entitled

• Section 12 of the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987: members of Scheduled Castes and Tribes; women and children; persons with disabilities; victims of trafficking or begar; victims of mass disaster, ethnic violence, caste atrocity or industrial disaster; industrial workmen; persons in custody; and persons below the prescribed income limit.

NALSA's role

• Apex body under the 1987 Act (working since 1995): frames policies and schemes, allocates funds and guides State, District and Taluk legal services bodies.
• Delivery through panel lawyers, legal services clinics, para-legal volunteers, awareness camps, Lok Adalats and mediation.

Assessment

• Gains: relief for undertrials and prisoners, victim compensation, outreach to marginalised groups, and mass settlement of disputes in National Lok Adalats.
• Gaps: low awareness among beneficiaries, uneven quality and motivation of panel lawyers, thin funding, weak monitoring and poor reach in remote areas.
• Way forward: full-time legal aid defence counsel, fair pay and training, prison legal clinics, Tele-Law, and independent quality feedback.

NALSA has built the architecture of legal aid; its next test is quality, so the poor litigant gets a fair fight, not merely a lawyer.

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Article 75(3) makes the Council of Ministers collectively responsible to the Lok Sabha; how far this holds depends on how well Parliament's instruments of accountability work in practice.

Instruments that work

• Questions and debates: Question Hour, Zero Hour, calling-attention notices, adjournment motions and the debate on the President's Address force ministers to answer and expose lapses.
• Financial control: Budget discussion, cut motions and appropriation, backed by the Public Accounts, Estimates and Public Undertakings Committees working on CAG reports.
• Committees: Department-related Standing Committees, and committees on subordinate legislation and government assurances, allow detailed, largely non-partisan scrutiny.
• Confidence: a no-confidence motion or defeat on a money Bill can bring a government down.

Why accountability is partial

• Party whips and the Tenth Schedule make the defeat of a government rare, so accountability works through exposure rather than removal.
• Disruptions, fewer sitting days, Bills passed without debate, heavy use of ordinances and declining referral of Bills to committees weaken scrutiny.

Extent and way forward

• Verdict: Parliament ensures accountability to a moderate extent, strong on paper but uneven in use.
• Fixes: more sitting days, routine committee referral, time-bound replies to assurances, protected opposition time and closer review of delegated legislation.

Parliament's instruments are adequate; what is missing is their regular use. Restoring debate, committee scrutiny and cross-party norms would make executive accountability real rather than formal.

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Indian federalism works through all three: forums for cooperation, rankings and fiscal formulas that spur competition, and disputes over money, agencies and turf that bring confrontation.

Cooperation: the norm

• Institutions: the Inter-State Council (Article 263), Zonal Councils, NITI Aayog's Governing Council and the GST Council (Article 279A), where the Centre holds one-third of the weighted vote and the States two-thirds.
• Fiscal: 42% devolution of the divisible pool on the 14th Finance Commission's advice.
• Crisis: the COVID-19 response from March 2020 ran through State administrations and Prime Minister–Chief Ministers meetings.

Competition: the newer face

• States compete for investment and are ranked on NITI Aayog's indices; the 15th Finance Commission's formula rewards demographic performance and tax effort.

Confrontation: the exception

• Money: the 2020 GST compensation shortfall, when the Centre offered borrowing options and several Opposition-ruled States objected.
• Agencies and law: Kerala's Article 131 suit against the CAA (2020) and Maharashtra's withdrawal of general consent to the CBI (2020).
• Farm Acts 2020: States objected that agriculture and markets are State subjects and some passed counter-bills (since then, the laws were repealed in 2021).

Cooperation and competition have built the working federation and confrontation has tested it, with courts guarding the balance (federalism is basic structure: S. R. Bommai, 1994); cooperation remains the norm and confrontation the exception, and trust-building forums with predictable fiscal rules keep the Union–State balance workable.

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India adopts a functional, not rigid, separation of powers (Ram Jawaya Kapur, 1955): organs overlap, but none may take over another's core function, and the principle is part of the basic structure. Guidelines framed by courts where no law exists, as in Vishaka, therefore invite the charge of judicial legislation.

The tension

• Article 50 asks the State to separate the judiciary from the executive; law-making belongs to legislatures, and enforceable judicial codes look like legislation without electoral accountability.

Why the petitions are justified

• Textual warrant: Article 32(2) empowers the Supreme Court to issue 'directions or orders or writs' to enforce fundamental rights, Article 226 gives High Courts the same reach, Article 141 makes the law declared binding and Article 142 permits orders for 'complete justice'.
• A vacuum, not a rival code: guidelines run only until the legislature acts. Vishaka (1997) governed workplace harassment for sixteen years until the 2013 Act replaced it; D. K. Basu (1996) on arrest and custody and Prakash Singh (2006) on police reform addressed executive inaction that no election had cured.
• Access to justice: victims of custodial abuse, pollution or harassment seldom can litigate alone; PIL lets citizens and groups bring executive failure before the court.
• Rights do not wait on legislative silence: an expansive Article 21 obliges courts to give content to life and liberty when the State does not.
• Accountability, not usurpation: directions bind executive authorities to act within existing law and constitutional duties; they do not create offences or taxes.

Limits the courts must respect

• Courts lack expertise, resources and enforcement machinery, and cannot weigh budgets or trade-offs; Article 142 cannot override express statutory provisions.
• 'Publicity interest' litigation clogs dockets; the Court has framed PIL guidelines and imposes costs for frivolous petitions.
• Discipline: keep guidelines temporary and confined to the gap, hear all stakeholders, defer on resource-heavy policy, and press the legislature to act.

PILs praying for guidelines are justified as a constitutional stopgap where rights are violated and law is silent; they stay legitimate only so long as the courts treat them as a bridge to legislation, not a substitute for it.

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The Constitution assigns legislative, executive and judicial functions to separate organs but does not seal them off from one another; in Ram Jawaya Kapur (1955) the Supreme Court held that it does not adopt a rigid separation of powers. I agree with the proposition.

No strict separation

• Executive drawn from the legislature: ministers sit in Parliament and are collectively responsible to the Lok Sabha (Articles 74–75).
• Executive legislates: ordinances (Articles 123, 213) and delegated rule-making.
• Legislature adjudicates: impeachment of the President (Article 61), removal of judges (Article 124(4)), punishment for breach of privilege.
• Judiciary fills legislative gaps: the Vishaka guidelines (1997) operated as law until Parliament acted.

Checks and balances

• Parliament checks the executive through questions, no-confidence motions and control of the purse; the President's assent checks Parliament.
• Courts check both through judicial review (Articles 13, 32, 226); Kesavananda (1973) made separation of powers a basic feature, and Raj Narain (1975) struck down an amendment by which Parliament decided a specific election dispute.
• The other organs appoint and remove judges, yet Articles 121, 124(4) and 125 protect judicial independence.
• Where separation matters, the text provides it: Article 50 separates the judiciary from the executive, and Article 122 keeps courts out of parliamentary procedure.

India follows a functional separation in which no organ may usurp another's essential function, and the basic-structure doctrine guards this balance against overreach.

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The Central Administrative Tribunal was established under the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, enacted under Article 323A (42nd Amendment, 1976), to give Union employees quick, inexpensive and expert relief in service matters.

Origin: a grievance forum

• Jurisdiction over recruitment and conditions of service: seniority, promotion, pay, transfer and discipline of Union employees, excluding armed forces personnel.
• Aim: to relieve the High Courts of service litigation and bring administrative expertise to the bench.

Now an independent judicial authority

• Court-like powers: it follows natural justice, has civil-court powers to summon witnesses and take evidence, grants interim relief and punishes contempt.
• Tests executive action: it quashes arbitrary orders on promotion, seniority, transfer and discipline that violate the Constitution or service rules.
• Judicial backing: L. Chandra Kumar (1997) made tribunals courts of first instance, able to examine the validity of laws (except their parent Act), subject to High Court review under Articles 226–227.
• Composition: benches combine judicial and administrative members, and the Madras Bar Association cases insisted that tribunals stay independent of the executive.

Limits

• Appointments, service conditions and administrative support rest with the Government, itself the main litigant before the tribunal.
• Vacancies, pendency and thin infrastructure dilute the promise of speedy justice.

The CAT has grown from a departmental grievance forum into a real court of service justice; secure tenure, transparent appointments and adequate staffing would complete its independence.

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The three lists of the Seventh Schedule cannot avoid overlap, so courts have evolved rules to decide which legislature may act: harmonious construction reconciles entries, and federal supremacy settles conflicts that cannot be reconciled.

Harmonious construction

• Entries of different lists are read together, each given the widest meaning consistent with the others, so that no entry becomes redundant.
• Pith and substance supports it: a law is placed in the list its true character belongs to, and incidental encroachment on another list is tolerated (State of Bombay v. Balsara, 1951).
• Because federalism is a basic feature (S.R. Bommai, 1994), courts try to preserve the State field before reaching for Union supremacy.

Federal supremacy

• Root: Article 246(1) gives Parliament exclusive power over List I ‘notwithstanding’ the powers in clauses (2) and (3), so the Union entry prevails where reconciliation fails.
• Concurrent List: a State law repugnant to a Union law is void to that extent under Article 254 unless it has the President's assent, and even then Parliament may override it.
• Colourable legislation, an indirect encroachment on another list, is struck down.

Balance in practice

• The Inter-State Council, Zonal Councils and the GST Council resolve overlapping claims before they reach the courts.

Courts read the lists harmoniously first and apply Union supremacy only as a last resort, a sequence that keeps India's federal balance workable while preserving national coherence.

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The statement is the core of Minerva Mills v. Union of India (1980), in which the Supreme Court struck down clauses (4) and (5) of Article 368, inserted by the 42nd Amendment (1976), which had declared Parliament's amending power unlimited and beyond judicial review.

A limited constituent power

• Article 368(1) lets Parliament, in its constituent power, amend ‘by way of addition, variation or repeal’ any provision; the 24th Amendment (1971) made this explicit after Golaknath (1967) had placed fundamental rights beyond amendment.
• Kesavananda Bharati (1973), by 7:6, overruled Golaknath but held that Parliament cannot alter the Constitution's basic structure: the power to amend is not the power to abrogate.
• Raj Narain (1975) applied the doctrine to strike down Article 329A(4), which had placed the Prime Minister's election beyond the courts.

Can Parliament enlarge its own power?

• The 42nd Amendment attempted exactly that; Minerva Mills answered that an amendment removing all limits on the amending power is itself an attack on the basic structure, since a limited power cannot be used to make itself absolute.
• Judicial review and the balance between Parts III and IV were held to be basic features, so Parliament cannot immunise its amendments from the courts.
• Waman Rao (1981) fixed 24 April 1973 as the cut-off for testing Ninth Schedule laws; I.R. Coelho (2007) held that laws added to the Ninth Schedule after that date remain open to review; the NJAC judgment (2015) struck down the 99th Amendment for undermining judicial independence.

The debate

• Critics call the doctrine judicial supremacy without a textual basis and note that basic features are identified case by case.
• Supporters see it as the guardian of democracy, secularism, federalism and judicial review against transient majorities.

Parliament may amend any provision, even fundamental rights, but it cannot use Article 368 to destroy the Constitution's identity or to free itself from that limit: the amending power is wide, but it is not sovereign.

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On 4 July 2018 a five-judge Constitution Bench in Government of NCT of Delhi v. Union of India read Article 239AA to hold that the Lt. Governor has no independent decision-making power and must ordinarily act on the aid and advice of Delhi's Council of Ministers.

What the judgment settled

• Status: Delhi is not a State but enjoys a special status; within the Assembly's legislative competence the elected government governs, and the Lt. Governor is bound by its aid and advice.
• Difference of opinion: the proviso to Article 239AA(4) lets the Lt. Governor refer a difference to the President, but only on matters of real importance, not as a routine veto; he cannot sit on decisions.
• Communication, not concurrence: the Council must inform the Lt. Governor of its decisions but need not obtain his prior approval.
• Constitutional morality: the Court invoked collective responsibility, cooperative federalism and mutual respect, warning both sides against obstruction.

Why it could not end the tussle

• Excluded subjects: police, public order and land stay outside the Assembly's power (Article 239AA(3)), and Parliament's overriding authority over Delhi continues, so friction is built into the design.
• Gaps left: control over 'services' and other specific matters went to smaller benches and stayed unresolved, so the dispute returned to the Court.
• Political rivalry: with different parties at the Centre and in Delhi, contests over transfers, postings and inquiries outlive any single judgment.
• Since then: in May 2023 a Constitution Bench held that the elected government controls services except public order, police and land; Parliament then created the National Capital Civil Service Authority by the 2023 Amendment Act, reopening the argument.

What is needed beyond the judgment

• Clear statutory allocation of powers, conventions of consultation, time-bound handling of references to the President, and restraint by both the Lt. Governor and the elected government.

The judgment clarified roles and gave primacy to the elected government in its sphere, but Delhi's unique status, excluded subjects and party rivalry mean disputes can return; cooperative federalism has to be practised, not merely declared.

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Tribunals were created for speed and expertise; the 42nd Amendment (1976) inserted Articles 323A and 323B, and the power to exclude court jurisdiction that came with them raised the fear that tribunals displace the ordinary courts.

Do tribunals curtail ordinary courts? A qualified yes

• The concern: service, tax, industrial, company and other disputes moved from civil courts and High Courts to tribunals, and early statutes barred High Court jurisdiction altogether, thinning the courts' role.
• The counter: tribunals relieve backlog, bring domain expertise, flexible procedure and speed, and the courts remain the final check through judicial review.
• Position: tribunals redistribute original jurisdiction but cannot oust supervisory jurisdiction; the curtailment is real at the first tier and unconstitutional beyond it.

Constitutional validity

• Basis: Article 323A permits administrative tribunals for recruitment and service matters of public servants; Article 323B lets legislatures create tribunals for taxation, industrial and labour disputes, land reforms and other listed subjects.
• Limit: in L. Chandra Kumar (1997) the Supreme Court held judicial review by the High Courts and Supreme Court to be part of the basic structure, struck down clauses excluding it, and made tribunal decisions appealable to a High Court Division Bench.
• Substitutes must match: in Madras Bar Association (2014) the Court struck down the National Tax Tribunal Act, because a body replacing courts must have comparable independence and judicial competence.

Competency and independence

• Weaknesses: executive control over appointments and tenure, prolonged vacancies, poor infrastructure and members without judicial training undermine confidence.
• Reforms sought: independent selection, secure terms and an independent body such as a National Tribunals Commission (since then, in November 2025, the Court struck down key provisions of the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021 and directed the Union to constitute one).

Tribunals are constitutionally valid alternatives to courts provided judicial review stays intact and their independence and competence are secured through fair appointments, secure tenure and adequate resources.

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In Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association v. Union of India (October 2015), a five-judge Constitution Bench struck down the 99th Amendment and the NJAC Act, 2014 by a 4:1 majority and restored the collegium.

The holding and its reasoning

• The six-member NJAC seated the Law Minister and two eminent persons, and any two members could veto a name backed by the Chief Justice and the two seniormost judges.
• The majority held that this compromised judicial independence, a part of the basic structure, since primacy of the judiciary in appointments is what keeps the separation of powers real.

Merits of the judgement

• It reaffirmed that even a constitutional amendment ratified by the States is open to judicial review on basic-structure grounds.
• It kept the executive, the largest litigant before the courts, from an effective veto over who judges it.

Criticisms

• A measure passed by Parliament and ratified by the States was set aside, feeding the charge of judges choosing judges.
• The collegium's own defects, opacity, no fixed criteria and no secretariat, were left untouched; Justice Chelameswar's dissent pressed precisely this point on transparency and accountability.
• The Memorandum of Procedure meant to reform the collegium remained contested between the Court and the Centre.

The judgement secured independence but not accountability; a transparent, criteria-based process with a secretariat, inside the collegium or a redesigned commission, remains the unfinished task.

Written by Minimalist IAS from facts checked at source (how we verify) — a little fuller than exam length, so every part of the question is covered; in the hall, keep the structure and trim the detail. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.

In Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India (24 August 2017), a nine-judge Bench unanimously held that the right to privacy is a fundamental right, settling a question left open since the 1950s.

What the Court held

• Privacy is intrinsic to life and personal liberty under Article 21 and runs through the other freedoms of Part III, including Articles 14 and 19.
• M.P. Sharma (1954) and Kharak Singh (1962) were overruled to the extent that they denied a right to privacy; the expansive reading of Article 21 since Maneka Gandhi (1978) was confirmed.
• Privacy is not absolute: a restriction must rest on a law, serve a legitimate State aim and be proportionate to that aim.

How it widens the scope of Fundamental Rights

• Content: the right covers bodily integrity, personal autonomy in decisions on family, marriage and food, and informational privacy in a digital age.
• Method: Articles 14, 19 and 21 are read together, and rights are treated as living guarantees that grow with new conditions rather than a fixed list from 1950.
• Dignity at the centre: privacy flows from dignity, which lets courts protect choices the text never named.
• Discipline on the State: every intrusion, from surveillance to data collection and Aadhaar-linked requirements, must now pass the threefold test of legality, legitimate aim and proportionality.
• Effect on law-making: a committee under Justice B.N. Srikrishna, constituted on 31 July 2017, went on to draft a data protection bill, giving the new right a statutory frame.
• Balance retained: welfare delivery, national security and prevention of crime remain legitimate aims, to be reconciled with privacy through law and safeguards.

Puttaswamy places autonomy and dignity at the core of Part III and reverses the burden: the citizen no longer has to prove that a right exists, the State has to prove that its intrusion is justified.

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Article 149 leaves the CAG's duties and powers to Parliament, which set them out in the CAG (Duties, Powers and Conditions of Service) Act, 1971; the mandate goes well beyond checking arithmetic.

Basis of the CAG's powers

• Article 148 secures independence through the manner of appointment, removal and conditions of service.
• Article 149 and the 1971 Act define the audit mandate over the accounts of the Union, the States and bodies substantially financed by them.
• Article 151 sends the reports to the President or Governor for laying before Parliament or the Assembly, where the Public Accounts Committee examines them.
• The audit has several kinds: financial, compliance, propriety and performance audit, the last testing economy, efficiency and effectiveness in the use of public money.

Does auditing implementation overstep?

• No, when it asks whether money achieved the stated aims. Parliament votes funds for outcomes, and performance audit is how it learns whether they were delivered; audit of implementation is audit of accountability.
• Yes, when the CAG questions the merits of a policy choice, substitutes its judgement for the executive's, or computes speculative losses on assumptions the policy never made.
• The 2G spectrum and coal block allocation reports show both faces: their loss estimates were disputed, yet they set off parliamentary and judicial scrutiny of how the allocations were made.

Keeping the line

• Audit outcomes and process, not the wisdom of policy; state every assumption behind a loss figure; give departments a right of reply; leave judgement on the findings to the Public Accounts Committee.

Auditing how a policy is implemented sits squarely within the CAG's mandate; auditing whether the policy was wise does not, and the institution's authority rests on keeping that line visible.

Written by Minimalist IAS from facts checked at source (how we verify) — a little fuller than exam length, so every part of the question is covered; in the hall, keep the structure and trim the detail. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.

In I.R. Coelho v. State of Tamil Nadu (2007) a nine-judge Bench of the Supreme Court settled how far the Ninth Schedule can shield laws from fundamental rights.

What Coelho held

• Article 31B protects laws placed in the Ninth Schedule from being void for inconsistency with fundamental rights, and over the decades the Schedule grew to hold many laws far removed from land reform.
• Laws added after 24 April 1973, the date of Kesavananda Bharati, can be challenged if they damage the basic structure.
• The test is the law's actual effect on rights that form part of the basic structure, such as those under Articles 14, 19 and 21, not the mere fact of inclusion.
• Result: the Ninth Schedule gives no blanket immunity; Parliament cannot, by inserting a law, take away the courts' power to test it.

Is judicial review the key feature?

• Yes, in one sense: it is the machinery that enforces every other feature. Federalism, secularism, free elections and fundamental rights stay declarations unless a court can strike down what breaches them.
• Precedent agrees: Minerva Mills (1980) and L. Chandra Kumar (1997) treated review as essential, and the NJAC ruling (2015) guarded judicial independence for the same reason.
• Coelho itself is proof: the case turned on whether Parliament could exclude review through a device, and the answer was no.
• Caution: the basic structure has no hierarchy. Democracy, federalism and secularism are as basic as review, and review must stay within constitutional limits and respect the separation of powers, or the court becomes a super-legislature.

Judicial review is the keystone that holds the basic structure in place, but a keystone is not the whole arch: it protects the other features and draws its own legitimacy from restraint.

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A quasi-judicial body is an authority outside the regular courts that is empowered by law to decide rights and disputes, and must do so through fair, court-like procedure.

Meaning and features

• Statutory basis: created by a law for one field, with power to summon witnesses, take evidence and pass binding or recommendatory orders.
• Natural justice: it must hear the parties, act without bias and give reasoned decisions, though its procedure is more flexible than a court's.
• Expertise: members are often domain specialists rather than judges, which suits technical fields such as competition, securities or environment.

How it differs from a court

• Its jurisdiction is confined to its statute; it cannot take up any dispute a civil court can.
• Its orders are open to judicial review under Articles 32, 226 and 227; L. Chandra Kumar (1997) held that High Court oversight of tribunals cannot be excluded.

Examples

• Central Information Commission: decides appeals under the RTI Act and can penalise officers who withhold information.
• National Human Rights Commission: inquires with civil-court powers, but its findings are recommendatory.
• Competition Commission of India: adjudicates cartels and abuse of dominance and imposes penalties.
• SEBI: passes orders against market misconduct, appealable to the Securities Appellate Tribunal.
• Election Commission: decides disputes over party splits and symbols.
• Tribunals such as the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal and the National Green Tribunal decide appeals and disputes in specialised fields.

Concerns

• Delays, vacancies, doubts over independence when the executive appoints and funds the body, and weak enforcement of recommendations.

Quasi-judicial bodies bring speed, expertise and low cost to justice; they serve the rule of law only while fair procedure, independence and judicial oversight are secured.

Written by Minimalist IAS from facts checked at source (how we verify) — a little fuller than exam length, so every part of the question is covered; in the hall, keep the structure and trim the detail. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.