Provision to interpret law for SC is a small slit, can’t be a floodgate: Dhankhar

Quite disappointing

Provision to interpret law for SC is a small slit, can’t be a floodgate: Dhankhar

Cautioning that any “incursion” on the Parliament’s domain by other state organs will disturb the “delicate applecart” of governance, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar Sunday said “constitutional provision providing for interpretation of law or Constitution to the Supreme Court is a small slit” and “can’t be a floodgate”.

At Constitution Day celebrations held by the Law Ministry in New Delhi, Dhankhar said: “Parliament alone is the architect of the Constitution to the exclusion of any other agency, executive or judiciary… Parliament can’t script a judgment to the Supreme Court. Similarly, Supreme Court can’t script law for us.”

He said: “People who sit in Parliament are there because through a legitimised mechanism on a proper platform, the people have expressed their mandate. Therefore Parliament is the soul of democracy…”

The VP said supremacy of Parliament as the “sole architect of the Constitution” is “unquestionable” and that “it is not amenable in its task to intervention either from the executive or the judiciary”. Dhankhar stated: “The sovereignty of Parliament is synonymous with sovereignty of the nation and the same is impregnable. Why I say so? The executive survives only if it has strength in Parliament. I don’t want to be a loudmouth; but the other institution also survives only when it is sanctified by Parliament. Therefore, such a body, the foundation of which is the mandate of the people, cannot allow any incursion in its domain. That will be disturbing the delicate applecart of governance in a democracy.”

The VP said any incursion in the exclusive domain of Parliament will be a “Constitutional aberration”.

Dhankhar said: “Democracy is optimally nurtured when state organs work in harmony… It is a constitutional mandate that all these organs of the state function in their respective domain.”

He said differences must be resolved using statesmanship. “Public posturing generating perception as a strategy to deal with such differences is best avoided,” Dhankhar said.

“…The independence of the judiciary is unquestioned but time has come that we must have a mechanism of a structured interaction among those at the helm of affairs of such institutions so that issues don’t come in public domain,” he said.

Ananthakrishnan G – 2023-11-27 04:22

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