In a system in which policy-makers and law-enforcers are perceived as apathetic, if not corrupt, and politicians are perceived as opportunistic demagogues rather than as visionary leaders, the Supreme Court of India has assumed the mantle of a ‘Supreme Court for Indians ’ 1 and a ‘last resort for the oppressed and bewildered’. 2 In the past three decades, the Court 3 has opened its doors to public-spirited citizens, 4 expanded the frontiers of fundamental rights, 5 and even ‘rewritten parts of the Constitution’. 6 The Court has transformed itself, through the exercise of its public interest jurisdiction, into an arena in which political, social and economic battles are fought, and socio-economic justice is delivered. 7 The power of public interest litigation (PIL) in India lies in its freedom from the constraints of traditional judicial proceedings. PILs in India have come to be characterised by a collaborative approach, procedural flexibility, judicially supervised interim orders and forward-looking relief. Judges in their activist avatar reach out to numerous parties and stake-holders, form fact-finding, monitoring or policy-evolution committees, and arrive at constructive solutions to the problems flagged for their attention by public-spirited citizens. Judges have tremendous power, in particular in PILs, to design innovative solutions, direct policy changes, catalyse law-making, reprimand officials and enforce orders. And, they are not hesitant to exercise this power in what they perceive as the public interest. Where there is a perceived ‘vacuum in governance, the Court rushes to fill it’. 8
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Lavanya Rajamani (2007) studied this question.