Powers of the Supreme Court

Guardian of Fundamental Rights

Part III of the Constitution lists the Fundamental Rights of every citizen, among them equality, liberty, the right to life and the freedoms of speech and religion. To make them real, the Constitution gives the Supreme Court and the High Courts writ jurisdiction. A citizen whose right is violated can file a writ petition directly in the Supreme Court under Article 32, where the issue matters for the whole country, or in the High Court under Article 226 for a violation within that State.

Public Interest Litigation

The Supreme Court introduced Public Interest Litigation (PIL), which is brought under Articles 32 and 226, to deal with matters of public concern and make the right to life (Article 21) real. The first reported PIL came from a lawyer, Kapila Hingorani, who read that some prisoners awaiting trial in Bihar had been jailed longer than any sentence they could have received. The Court ordered their release and issued guidelines that freed almost 40,000 under-trial prisoners across India. In M.C. Mehta v. Union of India it took up cleaning the Ganga and saving the Taj Mahal from pollution, and in Vishaka and Others v. State of Rajasthan (1997) it laid down guidelines against sexual harassment at the workplace, followed by a law in 2013.

Original, appellate and advisory jurisdiction

• Original jurisdiction (Article 131): only the Supreme Court can decide legal disputes between the Centre and one or more States, or among States, for example over sharing river water.
• Appellate jurisdiction: under Articles 132, 133 and 134A it hears appeals from final orders of a High Court when that High Court certifies that the case raises a question of interpreting the Constitution or a substantial question of law. It also hears criminal cases involving a death sentence or certified as fit for appeal (Articles 134 and 134A). Appeals from tribunals such as the National Green Tribunal and the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal come to it too.
• Advisory jurisdiction (Article 143): if the President asks for its opinion on an important question of law or fact, a Constitution Bench of at least five judges gives it.

Special leave and complete justice

Under Article 136 the Court has an extraordinary power to grant special leave to appeal against any judgment or order of any court or tribunal in India, where an important question of law arises or to do justice between the parties. The law it declares binds all courts in India (Article 141). It can pass any order needed for complete justice (Article 142), and all civil and judicial authorities must act in its aid (Article 144).

Why these powers matter

Together these powers make the Supreme Court the final interpreter of the Constitution, able to check that laws made by the legislature stay within it and that the executive does not overstep. They also let ordinary citizens, and even a newspaper reader like Kapila Hingorani, bring injustice to the Court’s notice.

Read on: courts in India, alternate dispute resolution, the chapter notes and the NCERT solutions.