New Delhi: It is the judiciary’s obligation to intervene when the executive fails to perform its duties, Rajya Sabha MP and senior advocate Kapil Sibal said Friday, criticising Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar for suggesting that courts were acting as a “super Parliament”.
He added that those on constitutional posts, like the Lok Sabha Speaker and Rajya Sabha chairman, should not act as spokespersons of political parties. “I have never seen any chairman of the house make political statements of this nature. Not even chairman from the BJP in the past… Speakers and chairpersons should not get enmeshed in the politics of the day,” Sibal told a press conference at his office here.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court’s judgment setting a timeline for the President to take decisions on Bills sent by Governors had drawn flak from Vice-President Dhankhar, also the ex-officio chairperson of Rajya Sabha.
“So, we have judges who will legislate, who will perform executive functions, who will act as super Parliament and absolutely have no accountability because the law of the land does not apply to them,” Dhankhar had said, addressing Rajya Sabha interns.
Sibal said Dhankhar’s criticism was unwarranted as under the Constitutional scheme of things, the Governors and the President are bound to act as per the aid and advice of the councils of ministers. “The President does not have any individual power.”
“It is because the executive is fallible that the Constitution gives the right to the court to interfere. If the court is fallible then there is an institutional procedure to correct it,” he added, questioning Dhankhar’s description of Article 142 of the Constitution as a “nuclear missile against democratic forces available to the judiciary 24×7”.
“How can you call it a nuclear missile? It is a power granted by the Constitution of India,” he said.
Sibal, a Congress veteran who quit the party in 2022 and entered the upper house as an independent MP backed by the Samajwadi Party, said it was about time Constitutional functionaries in the country understood the courts are not meant to follow the executive.
“According to some people, the executive is supreme and the courts must follow the leader. That does not happen in a constitutional democracy. The day the courts follow the leaders, there are no courts. Courts do not follow leaders of the country, courts decide on disputes that come before it in accordance with the Constitution and the laws. If you don’t like it, seek a review,” he said.
Sibal alleged that the ruling dispensation attacks court judgments that do not align with its views, while holding up those in its favour such as the ones on abrogation of Article 370 and the Ayodhya title suit.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
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