The Supreme Court of India turned to the solitary guardian of the people of Delhi at the expense of the billion plus citizenry as the Grandson of Chief Justice of India is reportedly forced to wear a mask due to pollution. A whopping levy of Rs 1300 has been slapped on the commercial vehicles plying through Delhi making lives of people in other parts of the country further expensive who too bear the brunt of inescapable menace of pollution.
Explicitly taxing an entire population for the sake of a few who have made it to an elite precinct called the National Capital Region, somewhere smacks of a differential outlook and approach on the part of the apex agencies with unimpeachable integrity and respect.
The consternation is beyond the judicial right of intervening into a pressing public issue and give directives to the Governments of the day. It's all about the sampling space which is increasingly getting cliched and reduced to a zone of extra ordinary power, inordinate privilege and skewed amounts of public expenditure. The moot question arises as to why the people residing in the National Capital Territory of Delhi be treated differentially from the others residing in the (32,00,000 minus 1484) sq. km landmass of the country.
The cost of the utter failure of this privileged principality just cannot be passed on blatantly by leveraging the constitutional powers to the simpleton toiling millions who look up for justice and probity and equality of treatment from these high constitutional institutions.
The country can't afford the burden of a dual governance which are not delivering in the first place. One, a populist disposition duly elected on a manifesto which in turn levies its own right for taxing its citizenry for delivering the due public services including those of law & order. Second, a court imposed levy which the elected ones silently support as they feel vindicates its very failure.
Instead of penalizing the very officials and public representatives and holding them accountable to the onerous responsibility of public governance, the court chooses to pass on the burden to the public at large. Does it feel helpless in being the arbiter of justice between the people and those in power? Is it not creative enough to discover the key operational gaps leading to a menace and impose their due bridging rather than merely translating the same into the vicious regime of imposing additional levy on the people?
The decisions of the sovereign governments in a democratic set-up can be questioned, argued against and opposed. But in order to ensure the legal suzerainty, supremacy and respect amidst the people at large, a convention to hold the views and judgements of the courts sacred has rarely been flouted.
If the court has to pass strictures in public interest, it has to view the plight of the entire country at large and issue directives accordingly. Why should a privileged precinct be singled out from its towering and all encompassing purview?
Secondly, by entering into the domain of policy making and passing on operational level strictures even to the extent of fixing the prices, doesn't it set a wrong precedent to guard and cover up the failure of democratically elected Governments? The Government of the day could not have been happier as it has got an additional revenue stream on the strictures of the court, which it can plunder at will to its own electoral advantage rather than real public benefit.
This stricture has simply passed on the environmental burden rather than addressing it from the roots. The court could have instructed simply that only those vehicles fitted with a particular standard of emission control would be allowed to ply down the privileged precinct of National Capital Region with an additional stricture to all the governments across the country to get all the vehicles empowered for the sake of the billion plus population.
Solution centric and all encompassing strictures would be hailed by the people at large and would sustain the unimpeachable integrity of the high institutions as that of The Supreme Court of India, which has somehow acted as The Supreme Court of Delhi, at least on this count.
Mr. Chief Justice, I too constitute your citizenry and have the same expectation as that of your grandson to prevent me from wearing a mask. You are the Chief Justice of the Republic of India.
Explicitly taxing an entire population for the sake of a few who have made it to an elite precinct called the National Capital Region, somewhere smacks of a differential outlook and approach on the part of the apex agencies with unimpeachable integrity and respect.
The consternation is beyond the judicial right of intervening into a pressing public issue and give directives to the Governments of the day. It's all about the sampling space which is increasingly getting cliched and reduced to a zone of extra ordinary power, inordinate privilege and skewed amounts of public expenditure. The moot question arises as to why the people residing in the National Capital Territory of Delhi be treated differentially from the others residing in the (32,00,000 minus 1484) sq. km landmass of the country.
The cost of the utter failure of this privileged principality just cannot be passed on blatantly by leveraging the constitutional powers to the simpleton toiling millions who look up for justice and probity and equality of treatment from these high constitutional institutions.
The country can't afford the burden of a dual governance which are not delivering in the first place. One, a populist disposition duly elected on a manifesto which in turn levies its own right for taxing its citizenry for delivering the due public services including those of law & order. Second, a court imposed levy which the elected ones silently support as they feel vindicates its very failure.
Instead of penalizing the very officials and public representatives and holding them accountable to the onerous responsibility of public governance, the court chooses to pass on the burden to the public at large. Does it feel helpless in being the arbiter of justice between the people and those in power? Is it not creative enough to discover the key operational gaps leading to a menace and impose their due bridging rather than merely translating the same into the vicious regime of imposing additional levy on the people?
The decisions of the sovereign governments in a democratic set-up can be questioned, argued against and opposed. But in order to ensure the legal suzerainty, supremacy and respect amidst the people at large, a convention to hold the views and judgements of the courts sacred has rarely been flouted.
If the court has to pass strictures in public interest, it has to view the plight of the entire country at large and issue directives accordingly. Why should a privileged precinct be singled out from its towering and all encompassing purview?
Secondly, by entering into the domain of policy making and passing on operational level strictures even to the extent of fixing the prices, doesn't it set a wrong precedent to guard and cover up the failure of democratically elected Governments? The Government of the day could not have been happier as it has got an additional revenue stream on the strictures of the court, which it can plunder at will to its own electoral advantage rather than real public benefit.
This stricture has simply passed on the environmental burden rather than addressing it from the roots. The court could have instructed simply that only those vehicles fitted with a particular standard of emission control would be allowed to ply down the privileged precinct of National Capital Region with an additional stricture to all the governments across the country to get all the vehicles empowered for the sake of the billion plus population.
Solution centric and all encompassing strictures would be hailed by the people at large and would sustain the unimpeachable integrity of the high institutions as that of The Supreme Court of India, which has somehow acted as The Supreme Court of Delhi, at least on this count.
Mr. Chief Justice, I too constitute your citizenry and have the same expectation as that of your grandson to prevent me from wearing a mask. You are the Chief Justice of the Republic of India.
No comments:
Post a Comment