Decent overview of important judgements that have shaped India’s legal discourse
Zia Mody is a well-known leader in corporate law in India. The daughter of Soli Sorabjee, one of India’s most eminent jurists of the previous generation, Mody has tried to give an overview of ten judgements that have had a lasting impact on not just how our Constitution is interpreted, but on how it has brought large-scale changes on the ground, mostly good and, on certain rare occasions, bad (albeit, unintentionally).
In reality, it’s not just ten judgements but many more, and Mody has, quite smartly, clubbed related judgements together into single chapters.
For example, Golak Nath judgement (Fundamental Rights cannot be amended by the Parliament) is mentioned in the run up to the Kesavananda Bharti judgement (undoubtedly the most important judgement in the history of independent India, where Golak Nath was overturned and, among a host of observations, the most important one was the introduction of the basic features doctrine – some parts and ideas in the Constitution are so sacrosanct that they can’t be amended by the Parliament); S.P. Gupta vs President of India, 1981, (commonly known as First Judges Case, the most important takeaways from this judgement were, among other things, that firstly, the Executive had the final say in the appointment of judges, even if the CJI was against such an appointment ; secondly, locus standi was extended forever, meaning that a person did not have to be directly involved in a case to knock on the doors of the courts, a decision that can be said to have given birth to PILs; and, thirdly, that official correspondence between government departments could be asked to be produced in a court of law as transparency is an essential element of a democratic society, an observation that can be said to have sown the seeds of the Right to Information Act ) finds its mention in the chapter on Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association vs Union of India, 1993 (commonly known as the Second Judges Case, it introduced the Collegium system, where Chief Justice and the two senior-most judges (extended to four in the Third Judges Case in 1998) appoint the High Court and Supreme Court judges, thus giving to the Judiciary the final say in the appointments process).
This approach is not only smart but also constructive as each judgement is seen in the context of the time in which it was passed – what necessitated it, what was the climate, and the like.
As an instance, one cannot hope to understand why there has been so much hullabaloo over the Collegium System in the last couple of years, if we don’t know why it was introduced in the first place (in Second Judges Case, as a response to certain issues in the First Judges Case). Our understanding of the present is inevitably linked with that of the past.
The book does a decent job of covering the important cases in its understandably narrow scope. It discusses Shah Bano (which allowed female Muslim divorcees a recourse to claim maintenance from their husbands without resorting to CrPC; more importantly, it also opened up the discussion on adopting a Uniform Civil Code), Aruna Shanbaug (the debate between passive euthanasia and active euthanasia) and Indra Sawhney (reservations, and the creamy layer), among others.
However, the one complaint I have with the book is that it is not very comprehensive. Maybe that was the very aim of Mody – to give an introduction to the important judgements, without indulging in too many technical details that may repel the average reader. It is her literary freedom, and I am no-one to question that.
But, since this review is about how I experienced the book, I did feel that, without taking anything away from Mody, for judgements that changed the legal, judicial, social and cultural climate of India in such profound ways, the chapters are relatively short. That is not to say they do not cover the topics well. But it’s more like reading the contents of a really important book, rather than reading the book itself. Or like reading the recipe without tasting the dish.
In short, the book is a good introduction for those who might be interested in having a bird’s-eye view of the various cases that have shaped India’s legal environment over the years, but those looking for something a little more comprehensive should look elsewhere.