A debate on whether Parliamentary Standing Committee (PSC) reports can be relied upon by the judiciary to decide PIls became a flashpoint between the Centre and the Supreme Court on Thursday.
The Centre donned the shield of Parliamentary privilege to deny courts from looking into these reports.
It also went a step further to claim that by using its vast powers under the Constitution, the Supreme Court had expanded the Right to life (Article 21) to evolve 30 other fundamental rights that cannot be enforced. Attorney-General KK Venugopal cited statistics to show how 270 million people still remain under the poverty line, while a majority has an “animal existence” in the country.
He even referred to the court’s decision banning liquor vends along national and State highways, resulting in the loss of 1,00,000 jobs.
This sparked a confrontation with the five-judge Constitution Bench that was hearing the matter. Justice DY Chandrachud, one of the judges on the Bench, remarked, “It is your responsibility (that people should not have an animal existence). This only shows your failure.”
Taking the order banning liquor as a personal attack since he authored the said judgment, Justice Chandrachud explained, “It was not our policy to ban liquor vends on highways. Rather it was the Government’s own policy that we enforced. Your Attorney-General (Mukul Rohatgi) had said this is the Centre’s policy and we recorded it in the order. He (after resigning from the A-G’s post) later appeared for Tamil Nadu and opposed the Centre’s policy.”
It became a one-to-one confrontation which forced other members of the Bench to intervene. Chief Justice Dipak Misra, presiding over the Bench said, “The Constitution has given us Article 142 as the greatest ‘brahma astra’…We have laid down guidelines in cases where there was constitutional silence and we felt our duty.”
The CJI, along with other judges - Justices AK Sikri, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan -cited examples where court orders helped maintain ecological peace, cracker ban on Diwali that enabled cleaner breathing air for Delhi, law on eve-teasing where there is absence of any law, and guidelines on female foeticide when the executive guidelines remained only on paper.
The long exposition of the court’s track record made the A-G accept that for a 70-year-old democracy which is still young and developing, the court’s interference has done tremendous good. He said, “Supreme Court in our country has acquired vast powers and undoubtedly is the most powerful court in the country. But that is because the Government of the day has the highest respect for the courts.”
The statement proved to be the proverbial olive branch extended by the Centre. CJI Misra remarked, “The issue we are debating here is whether Parliamentary Standing Committee (PSC) reports can be of assistance to courts.” The question was referred to five judges as a PIl relied on 81st PSC report indicting pharmaceutical companies for conducting unethical trials of its Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine resulting in alleged deaths. “We can order our own enquiry and come to a finding (as the case in question related to), but we are deciding this issue to avoid constitutional discomfort between Parliament and the judiciary.”
The A-G submitted that PSC reports are for Members of the Parliament. “What Parliament will do with this or what finding it will give is purely a conjecture. You must not jump into that arena and summon the document on which Parliament alone can decide,” he said. The court will continue to hear the matter on Tuesday.