PIL in action and the overreach debate

Detail

1. What PIL changed

• Public Interest Litigation (PIL): a case filed in the public interest. The person filing it does not need to be the one who was harmed.
• Courts relaxed locus standi (the old rule that only the person who was harmed may go to court).

• Courts also accepted letters and newspaper reports as petitions. This is called epistolary jurisdiction.

• Judicial activism: courts taking an active role. They widen rights, give directions to government and fill gaps that the law leaves open.

• PIL works through Art. 32 (the right to approach the Supreme Court) and Art. 226 (the power of High Courts to issue writs).
• NCERT's verdict is that the court "has expanded the idea of rights". The main tool for this was Art. 21 (protection of life and personal liberty).

2. Rights read into Article 21

Right	Case (year)	What the Court held
Live with dignity	Francis Coralie Mullin v. Administrator, UT of Delhi (1981)	Life means more than "animal existence". It includes the basic needs of a life with dignity.
Livelihood	Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation (1985)	Pavement dwellers cannot be evicted without a fair procedure, because livelihood is part of life.
Speedy trial	Hussainara Khatoon v. State of Bihar (1979)	Undertrials (people held in jail while waiting for trial) who had been held longer than their maximum possible sentence were ordered released.
Free legal aid	M.H. Hoskot v. State of Maharashtra (1978)	A poor prisoner must get a lawyer and a copy of the judgment so they can appeal.
Emergency medical care	Parmanand Katara v. Union of India (1989)	Every doctor must treat an injured person at once, without waiting for police formalities.
Pollution-free water and air	Subhash Kumar v. State of Bihar (1991)	A clean environment is part of the right to life.
Education	Mohini Jain (1992); Unni Krishnan (1993)	Education is part of life. Unni Krishnan limited this to free education up to age 14.
Privacy	K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017, 9 judges)	Privacy is a fundamental right under Art. 21 and Part III. See fundamental-rights.

3. From court rulings to laws passed by Parliament

• Education:
• Unni Krishnan (1993) → the 86th Amendment, 2002 added Art. 21A. It makes free and compulsory education for children aged 6–14 a fundamental right. [6]
• → The RTE Act 2009 gives effect to Art. 21A. It came into force on 1 April 2010. [6]

• Class 8 NCERT uses this story to show how laws begin: "someone argued in court", and the law followed.

• Food:

• In PUCL v. Union of India (2001 onward), the Court kept passing orders. One of them made cooked mid-day meals compulsory in government schools.

• This work later led to the National Food Security Act 2013.

• Sexual harassment at work:

• In Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan (1997), the Court laid down guidelines. At the time there was no law on the subject.
• Parliament later passed the POSH Act 2013 (Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act). It was enacted on 22 April 2013 and came into force on 9 December 2013. [2][3]
• The Act uses the Vishaka definition of harassment and widens it. It covers hostile work environments, the public and private sectors, organised and unorganised work, and transport used for work. [2]

• Every workplace with 10 or more workers must set up an Internal Complaints Committee (ICC). For other cases there is a Local Complaints Committee (LCC). [2]

• Elections:

• In Union of India v. ADR (2002), the Court held that voters have a right to know about candidates.

• Candidates must now file affidavits (sworn statements) on their assets, education and criminal record.

• Public order:

• In 1997 the Kerala High Court declared bandhs illegal. A bandh is a forced shutdown called by a party.
• The Supreme Court upheld this in 1998. NCERT illustrates the case with a cartoon.

4. Environmental PILs: the M.C. Mehta cases

• M.C. Mehta cases: a series of PILs filed by lawyer M.C. Mehta. They covered the oleum gas leak, Ganga pollution, the Taj and Delhi's air.
• The oleum gas leak (December 1985) happened at Shriram's plant in Delhi.
• In M.C. Mehta v. Union of India (1987), the Court created the rule of absolute liability.
• Absolute liability: a firm that does hazardous work must pay in full for any harm it causes.
• It gets none of the exceptions allowed under strict liability. Strict liability is the older rule from Rylands v. Fletcher (1868), which allowed defences such as an act of God or the act of a third party.

• Compensation grows with the firm's size and capacity to pay, so that the penalty also acts as a deterrent.

• Ganga pollution: the Court closed tanneries along the river that had no effluent treatment.

• Taj Trapezium: polluting industries around the Taj Mahal had to switch to cleaner fuel or move out.
• Delhi CNG case (NCERT exercise 5):
• In July 1998 the Court ordered Delhi's buses to move to CNG.
• The Centre and the Delhi government jointly asked for more time and for a dual-fuel policy. They wanted to wait for the Mashelkar auto-fuel committee.
• The Court still enforced the order in 2001-02.

• The exercise asks students to identify the governments involved and the Court's role, and to weigh policy-making against implementation.

• Dahanu (NCERT exercise 4):

• Chikoo growers complained that a thermal power plant's fly ash was damaging their orchards.

• The plant was made to give a ₹300 crore bank guarantee (2005) that it would install pollution controls.

• T.N. Godavarman v. Union of India (1995 onward):

• This is a forest case that the Court has kept open since 1995.

• The Court defined "forest" broadly. It now supervises forest clearances.

• Environmental cases later moved to a specialised body, the National Green Tribunal (NGT, 2010). See justice-delivery-tribunals.

5. Governance cases and continuing mandamus

• Writ of mandamus: a court order telling a public authority to do its legal duty.
• Continuing mandamus: the court keeps a case open and gives orders from time to time to supervise how an agency works.
• NCERT's section "Judiciary and Parliament" names cases where the Court directed the CBI to investigate:
• the hawala case (politicians who took money through illegal channels);
• a case involving former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao;

• the petrol-pump allotment case.

• The Vineet Narain v. Union of India case (1997), also called the Jain hawala case:

• The Court kept the hawala probe pending and gave regular directions. This is continuing mandamus.
• It ordered the government to give the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) statutory status, meaning a status set by law. [4]
• The government first issued an Ordinance in 1998. This gave the CVC power to supervise the Delhi Special Police Establishment (the CBI). [4]

• The CVC Act 2003 came into force on 11 September 2003. The CVC is now a statutory body. It is not a constitutional body. [4][5]

• Later cases:

• 2G spectrum (CPIL v. Union of India, 2012): 122 telecom licences were cancelled.
• Coal blocks (Manohar Lal Sharma, 2014): 214 coal-block allocations were cancelled.

6. The overreach debate

• Judicial overreach: the charge that courts take over work that belongs to the executive or the legislature.
• NCERT's negative side of activism:
• Activism overburdens courts.
• It blurs the line between the organs of government.

• Pollution, corruption probes and electoral reform should be handled by the administration, under the oversight of the legislature.

• Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar warned the Constituent Assembly (23 November 1949) that courts must not become a "super-legislature or super-executive".

• Orders often cited as overreach:
• Highway liquor ban (2016): no liquor shops within 500 m of national and state highways.
• National anthem in cinemas (2016): made compulsory before films, then made optional in 2018.
• River-interlinking order (2012): the Court told the Centre to carry out the river-linking project.
• BCCI reform (2016): the Court imposed the Lodha Committee reforms on cricket's governing body.

• Firecracker bans in Delhi-NCR.

• Judicial restraint: courts defer to elected branches on policy. They strike down a law only when it is clearly unconstitutional.

• In Aravali Golf Club v. Chander Hass (2008), the Court warned judges not to run the government.
• On economic policy the courts defer: R.K. Garg v. Union of India (1981, bearer bonds) and BALCO Employees' Union v. Union of India (2002, disinvestment).

• Presumption of constitutionality: a court starts by assuming a law is valid. The person challenging it must prove otherwise.

• The counter-view:

• Courts step in only when the government fails to act and leaves a vacuum.

• Legislatures often turn the court's guidelines into law later. Examples are the POSH Act 2013 (from Vishaka), the CVC Act 2003 (from Vineet Narain) and mob lynching made a separate offence in the BNS 2023 (after Tehseen Poonawalla, 2018).

• NCERT question: "What will happen if the legislature and executive started giving justice?" It points out that the separation of powers works in both directions.

Prelims Hooks

• Olga Tellis (1985) → livelihood; Francis Coralie Mullin (1981) → dignity; M.H. Hoskot (1978) → free legal aid; Hussainara Khatoon (1979) → speedy trial.
• Parmanand Katara (1989) → emergency medical care; Subhash Kumar (1991) → pollution-free water and air.
• 86th Amendment 2002 → Art. 21A (free and compulsory education for ages 6–14). The RTE Act 2009 took effect on 1 April 2010.
• Vishaka (1997) → POSH Act 2013, in force 9 December 2013. An ICC is required where there are 10 or more workers.
• Absolute liability comes from M.C. Mehta (1987), the oleum gas case. It allows no exceptions, unlike strict liability under Rylands v. Fletcher.
• Vineet Narain (1997) → continuing mandamus → CVC Ordinance 1998 → CVC Act 2003. The CVC is statutory, not constitutional.
• Union of India v. ADR (2002) → candidate affidavits on assets, education and criminal record.
• Delhi buses moved to CNG under a July 1998 order, enforced in 2001-02. T.N. Godavarman (1995 onward) → forests.
• Aravali Golf Club (2008) and BALCO (2002) → judicial restraint, not activism.

Mains Points

• Activism as filling a vacuum: many PIL orders later became law, such as the POSH Act, the CVC Act, the RTE Act and the NFSA. This shows that courts often set the agenda when the government fails to act. It also shows the risk of courts making law without debate or accountability.
• Overreach and the separation of powers:
• Orders such as the highway liquor ban, the anthem rule and river interlinking stretch judicial review into policy-making.
• Courts lack the expertise and the budget to carry these orders out.
• Courts also cannot be held to account in elections the way governments can.

• The Alladi "super-legislature" warning frames this debate.

• Continuing mandamus has trade-offs: it can protect an investigation from political pressure, as in the hawala, 2G and coal cases. But it piles up pending cases and keeps courts managing the work of executive agencies over long periods.

• Possible reforms:
• Screen PILs more strictly and impose costs on frivolous petitions.
• Send technical disputes to specialist tribunals, such as the NGT for the environment.
• Courts should follow restraint in economic policy, as in R.K. Garg and BALCO.
• Legislatures should enact the courts' guidelines quickly.