Judiciary not to spill over to legislature: PM

New Delhi, Apr 8 (UNI) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today cautioned the judiciary from spilling over into the territory of the legislature as it would become a case of ''overreach.'' "The dividing line between judicial activism and judicial overreach is a thin one...A takeover of the functions of another organ may, at times, become a case of overreach," the Prime Minister said while inaugurating a conference of chief ministers and chief justices of High Courts.

Dr Singh's remarks came against the backdrop of legislations being struck down by the Supreme Court.

The recent ones were the constitutional validity of Schedule Nine and the stay on implementing a 27 per cent quota for OBCs in top educational institutions.

The Prime Minister stressed that the judiciary's primary obligation was to enforce the rule of law, uphold the Constitution and enforce the discharge of obligations by any authority of the state. This conferred enormous power on the courts, the Prime Minister said.

At the same time the judiciary cannot substitute its power of mandamus to take over the functions of another organ-- the legislature and the executive. The power of mandamus enables the apex court and High Courts to give directions on any matter.

"Unless the three wings of the state understand each other better, they will not be able to function effectively in the interests of our nation and our people," he said.

The Prime Minister said powers accorded to each organ must be exercised cautiously. Each organ must respect the roles and functions of others for harmonious functioning.

"Each one of the organs have their constitutionally assigned roles and responsibilities and these must be discharged in all honesty," he remarked.

Admitting that there was a huge pendency of cases in various courts, Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan blamed lack of adequate judges and infrastrucure for the problem.

"The courts do not possess a magic wand which they can wave to wipe out the huge pendency of cases, nor can they afford to ignore the instances of injustices and illegalities because of the huge arrears of cases already pending with them. If the courts start doing that, it would be endangering the credibility of the courts and the tremendous confidence they still enjoy from the common man," he said.

He said there were volumes of recommendations from the Law Commission, reports of experts committees and opinions of jurists highlighting the problem and suggesting ways and means to overcome it. "The need of the hour is to act upon those suggestions swiftly and decisively." Besides increasing the number of judges at all levels in a phased manner, as a first step, it is absolutely imperative to fill vacancies at all levels in the shortest possible period, the Chief Justice said.

"We have to develop zero vacancy or near zero vacancy culture," he observed.

Law Minister H R Bharadwaj said it had been decided to provide laptops to all judicial officers with broadband connectivity to enable them to access judgements from archives and save considerable time.

He said the government has approved a scheme for computerisation of courts across the country with an outlay of Rs 450 crore.

Mr Bharadwaj urged Chief Ministers to come forward and help the Central government establish gram nyayalayas at the intermediate panchayat level as recommended by the Law Commission.

UNI