Topic: Structure, organization and functioning of the Executive and the Judiciary—Ministries and Departments of the Government; pressure groups and formal/informal associations and their role in the Polity
1. Having invented the principle of institutional integrity, has the Supreme court of India applied it uniformly to cases across political dispensations? Give your opinion with suitable examples. (250 words)
Reference: The Wire
Why the question:
The article explains in what way the Supreme Court must not be in contempt of its noble position in the Constitution of India.
Key Demand of the question:
The question aims to analyse whether Supreme Court of India applied the principle of institutional integrity uniformly to cases across political dispensations or not.
Structure of the answer:
Introduction:
Start by explaining what you understand by the principle of institutional integrity.
Body:
Such questions are better explained with series of examples demonstrating the context of the question.
Explain that the top court has both saved and failed India in the seventy years of its existence. Without the top court’s rulings on basic structure doctrine, its purposive reading of fundamental rights and its strict judicial review of scores of illicit executive actions and invalid laws passed by legislatures, India would have been a different country. The top court has played the role of sentinel of Indian democracy on multiple occasions.
But the court has also failed this nation at some of its darkest moments. The era of the Emergency was one such juncture when many judges of the top court betrayed the soul of the Indian constitution.
Quote recent incidences where the principle has been compromised.
Suggest what needs to be done.
Conclusion:
Conclude with fair and balanced opinion.
