Supreme Court of India involves itself in matters it should not be involved in at all: Justice Rohinton Nariman on Article 136

The Supreme Court is involving itself in matters which it shouldn’t be involving itself in at all, said former Supreme Court judge Justice Rohinton Nariman said on Friday.

Justice Nariman was drawing a comparison between the role of the Supreme Courts in India and the United States when he highlighted a unique provision that finds place in our Constitution - Special leave to appeal to the Supreme Court under Article 136.

"We have a unitary structure – High Courts for each of the States and we have appeals from those High Courts. Not only we have appeals from those High Courts, we have Article 136 which I don’t think has any parallel in the world which has been exercised by all of us like the Chancellor’s foot."

He elaborated that this led to the Supreme Court being able to entertain nearly any case and thus, there is a very vast appellate jurisdiction enjoyed by the Supreme Court of India making the top court somewhat of a national court of appeal.

"And really speaking, we are involving ourselves in matters which we shouldn’t be involving ourselves at all," he opined in this regard.

Justice Nariman was delivering the seventh Chief Justice MC Chagla Memorial Lecture on the subject 'A tale of two Constitutions- India and the United States: the long and short of it all'.

He also explained the working of the United States Supreme Court which has limited original jurisdiction primarily in disputes between States essentially and appellate jurisdiction so far as the Constitution and laws of the US are concerned.

"In short, it does not touch the States or their laws. The States have their own constitution, own judiciary, own Supreme Court.. so you have two parallel systems that work there."

During the lecture, Justice Nariman also gave a strongly worded response to the Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju regarding the latter's remarks against the Collegium system of appointment of judges.

Read details here.

[Watch video of full speech here]