Supreme Court and executive collide over power outages

Supreme Court and executive collide over power outages

TIMES VIEW Judiciary should champion common man’s cause
When temperatures soar and there is no respite from power outages, even the most placid can lose their cool. The unbearable heat and lack of electricity prompted a citizen to file a public interest litigation (PIL) petition against the Delhi government for failing to deal with the power crisis. The Delhi government sought to defuse the issue by arguing that people do not have a fundamental right to electricity, and accused the apex court of acting like a super planning commission.
People pay taxes to the government on the presumption that government, on its part, should provide basic services like power. If the government should fail to keep up its part of the social contract, that certainly falls within the ambit of the judiciary to rule on. The politicians’ failure has necessitated a certain degree of judicial activism.
The same argument would hold good for right to clean air and water, and public health services. If residents of Delhi enjoy relatively cleaner air today, it is because the city’s dieselpowered buses and auto-rickshaws were forced — by a Supreme Court ruling — to convert to compressed natural gas. It was again the Supreme Court that, on admitting a PIL by environmentalists, directed extremely polluting industries to shift out of the densely populated capital.
If judicial activism is what it takes for elected representatives to get their act together, so be it. In times of crisis when breakdown of essential services becomes all too frequent — not always because of supply shortfall but more because of poor regulation and distribution — what bails out the citizen is the intervention of institutions like the Supreme Court, whether doing so is strictly within its domain or not. Instead of resenting the activist avatar of the apex court, or getting needlessly technical, the executive should take the cue and rescue people from the dark ages. Providing essential services — including electricity — should be its priority.
COUNTER VIEW Power is not apex court’s business Sindhu Manjesh
APIL filed by an irate citizen in Delhi, in response to frequent power cuts, has sparked off a tug of war between the executive and judiciary. The Delhi government has argued that power is not a fundamental right, and wants the apex court to keep off the matter.
The executive’s position on the issue holds water. While an individual is guaranteed the right to life under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, the right to power, per se, is not secured.
It is not the job of the judiciary to advise the executive on the measures it must take to tide over the power crisis. It is undesirable for the judiciary to issue fiats to the executive on non-justiciable issues such as power in the name of protecting citizens’ interests. This is not the first time that it has done so. Earlier, it ordered that Delhi’s public transport must be powered by CNG in aid of combating pollution.
There is no denying that clean air, an efficient public transport system and regular power supply are basic amenities that government owes its citizens. The redress of the lack of these, however, is not the business of the Supreme Court.
Ultimately, it is the executive that has to mobilise resources and oversee the implementation of projects. The court does not have the responsibility of delivering what its diktats prescribe. It does not have to deal with the reality on the ground or the feasibility of its suggestions. Judicial activism therefore runs the risk of exercising power without responsibility. Its function can’t be reduced to giving feel-good judgments.
For the healthy functioning of a democracy, it is necessary that there is a balance of power between the executive, legislature and judiciary. Together, they ensure a system of checks and balances in the larger interest of the public. While a healthy tension between them is desirable, overreach is not.