Answer in 150 words: Judicial overreach in India. (2020, 10 Marks)
Judicial overreach is activism that has crossed its boundary. The court enters the domain of the legislature or executive, or undertakes tasks it cannot competently perform, and so exceeds its constitutional limits without any electoral accountability.
Activism versus overreach
- Activism enforces a constitutional entitlement that is being denied, where no other remedy exists. Vishaka (1997) guidelines were expressly interim until Parliament legislated.
- Overreach selects among policies the Constitution leaves open. Creative interpretation is not itself overreach; prescribing and administering the substitute policy is.
- The line is contested: critics tend to call judgments they like activism and those they dislike overreach, so a test is needed, not a mood.
Instances usually cited
- Administration: BCCI governance restructured through the Lodha Committee (2016); the national anthem made mandatory in cinemas (2016, withdrawn 2018); the highway liquor ban (State of Tamil Nadu v. K. Balu, 2016), diluted within months.
- Policy and legislation: firecracker and vehicle bans in Delhi; the farm laws stayed and referred to a committee (2021).
- Self-interest: the NJAC ruling (2015) set aside a near-unanimous constitutional amendment on judges’ own appointment.
- Constitutional text: Article 142 used for timelines and deemed assent for Governors (April 2025).
Why it matters
- Democratic deficit: unelected judges cannot be voted out, and no higher forum reviews them.
- Competence: polycentric policy needs data and budgets the bench lacks.
- Credibility: unimplemented or reversed orders cheapen judicial authority, while pendency grows. Pratap Bhanu Mehta notes the paradox of a Court that polices every institution’s accountability but resists its own.
- Moral hazard: each intervention lowers the cost of legislative inaction, which invites the next intervention.
Checks
- Self-restraint: in Divisional Manager, Aravali Golf Club v. Chander Hass (2007), the Court warned that “Judges must know their limits and must not try to run the Government.” Courts also defer to the executive on economic policy (BALCO, 2001).
- Self-correction: the Article 143 opinion of 20 November 2025 held that courts cannot fix assent timelines and that deemed assent is unconstitutional.
- Legislative response: amendment or fresh law, for example new tribunal statutes after adverse rulings, though the Court has struck down several re-enactments.
Conclusion
Overreach is usually the price of executive and legislative default, not judicial ambition alone. The remedy is judicial self-restraint guided by a clear entitlement test, combined with elected organs that legislate and govern. Restraint is not abdication.