Indian Polity Quiz: Public Interest Litigation and Judicial Activism

Habeas corpus is Latin for you may have the body. A High Court under Article 226, and the Supreme Court under Article 32, issues it to the person or authority holding someone in custody, ordering that the detenu be produced before the court so that the legality of the detention…

Decided in 1979, it arose from a newspaper report on undertrial prisoners in Bihar who had been in jail awaiting trial for longer than the maximum sentence their alleged offences carried.

The Supreme Court held that where a legal wrong is caused to a person or a class of persons who cannot approach the court because of poverty, disability or a socially disadvantaged position, any member of the public acting in good faith may move the court on their behalf.

It is a Directive Principle that requires the State to secure a legal system which promotes justice on the basis of equal opportunity, and in particular to provide free legal aid by suitable legislation or schemes so that no citizen is denied the opportunity to secure justice by reason of…

Often called the Mini Constitution because of the number of provisions it touched, it added several Directive Principles, among them Article 39A on equal justice and free legal aid, Article 43A on worker participation in management and Article 48A on the protection of the environment, forests and wildlife.

The phrase travelled into Indian constitutional writing and now describes a court that reads rights expansively, fills a legislative vacuum and supervises the executive until a constitutional duty is discharged.

The petition followed the gang rape of a social worker in rural Rajasthan who had tried to stop a child marriage.

It says that the Supreme Court in the exercise of its jurisdiction may pass such decree or make such order as is necessary for doing complete justice in any cause or matter pending before it, and that such a decree is enforceable throughout India.

Epistolary jurisdiction is the practice by which the Supreme Court, and later the High Courts, treated a simple letter or postcard describing a violation of rights as a formal writ petition, dispensing with the usual requirements of form, court fee and a lawyer.

The Court also warned in the same judgment that a PIL must not be used to settle a personal score, and it dismissed the petition on that ground.

Both sat on the Supreme Court in the late nineteen seventies and early eighties, both wrote the judgments that relaxed locus standi and accepted letters as petitions, and both pushed free legal aid and prison reform through the court.

In this 2010 judgment the Supreme Court traced the history of PIL and, worried that the device was being used for publicity, private profit and political rivalry, compiled a set of directions for the courts.