It is good to hear exhortations to balance from time to time by eminent public personalities, and Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia did just that on Saturday when he indicated judges ought not to go overboard in their verdicts. Judges ought to apply the principle of enforceability before propounding legal principles and passing orders, the CJI said, pointing to the Supreme Court’s ruling in the case involving Baba Ramdev’s agitation at Delhi’s Ramlila Grounds in June 2011. The Supreme Court on that occasion had spoken of the “fundamental right to sleep”, referring to the police descending on sleeping men and women to evict them from the protest venue.
Overstretching jurisprudence in human rights matters in this manner does not really serve the purpose as the executive might be helpless in enforcing a court order in a matter like sleep, and it would be hard to employ contempt jurisdiction in the event of such a transgression.
In the wider sense, Mr Kapadia was urging his brother judges not to stray into the province of either the executive or the legislature, for that would distort the constitutional order. Judges cannot govern the country, he observed with great wisdom, “as we are not accountable to the people”. He appropriately urged the government not to proceed with laws that could upset the fine balance for a federal structure of governance. The non-partisan stance the CJI brought to bear on the interpretation of events around him commends itself to public authorities in all situations.