Introduction:
Article 142 provides the Supreme Court with such powers that it may pass such decree or make such order as is necessary for doing complete justice in any cause or matter pending before it.
Article 142, or better known as the ‘Hammer of Justice’, is an essential part of the Indian Judicial system.
The Judiciary and the Indian Constitution believes that every citizen of the country must get “complete justice” and it could even override the laws made by the Parliament to provide that.
Background:
It has been observed by the Supreme Court that the power to provide complete justice cannot be restricted by the provisions of a statutory law. Thus, this article was brought in to allow the Judiciary to overrule the legislature if needed, and provide complete justice to the citizens of the nation.
The prime examples of the article in effect are the “The Union Carbide case”, The ban on the sale of alcohol along national and state highways and the “Supreme Court Bar Association v. Union of India” case, where the Supreme Court has time and again tried to reinforce the idea of justice for all, on which the entire judiciary relies.
Significance:
The Article, over the years, has been invoked a number of times and holds great esteem amongst the elite of the judiciary, It is viewed as a tool that achieves and maintains an equilibrium between the diverse interests and, in the end, ensures that the honorable always succeed. However, the article should only be utilized to further the interests of justice by eliminating the gaps created by the frail and insufficient laws.
Loopholes:
When we go through the several judgements and explanations provided by the Supreme Court, it gives us an idea of impartiality and complete justice, but it is still blurred. It may be used to fill the lacuna of law, but in the judgement on the ban on the sale of liquor near national and state highways, we find that it affected many hotels, bars, restaurants, etc. It also led to the unemployment of lakhs of people even though the deaths due to drunk driving on highways at the time were only 4.2% of the total highway accidents.
Conclusion:
The article provides a number of benefits if put to use in the correct manner. However, on multiple occasions, this power when exercised had its own drawbacks, the most important one of them being the problem of competing rights.
The absence of judicial restraint and the practice of exercising it merely on grounds of sympathy shows that the time has come for the Supreme Court to introspect on whether the use of Article 142 as an independent source of power should be regulated by strict guidelines so that, in the words of Justice Benjamin Cardozo, the judge “is not a knight-errant roaming at will in pursuit of his own ideal.”
Comments