PTI | New Delhi
Chief Justice of India B R Gavai has emphasised that judicial activism is bound to stay but cautioned that it should not be turned into judicial terrorism.
Chief Justice of India Gavai said power of judicial review should be used sparingly and be used only if a statute is violative of the basic structure of the Constitution.
“Judicial activism is bound to stay. At the same time, judicial activism should not be turned into judicial terrorism. So, at times, you try to exceed the limits and try to enter into an area where, normally, the judiciary should not enter,” Gavai said in response to a question from a legal news portal.
Gavai described the Constitution as a “quiet revolution etched in ink” and a transformative force that not only guarantees rights but actively uplifts the historically oppressed.
“The Constitution is not merely a legal charter or a political framework. It is a feeling, a lifeline. In my own journey, from a municipal school to the Office of the Chief Justice of India, it has been a guiding force,” the CJI said.
“The Constitution is a social document, one that does not avert its gaze from the brutal truths of caste, poverty, exclusion, and injustice. It does not pretend that all are equal in a land scarred by deep inequality. Instead, it dares to intervene, to rewrite the script, to recalibrate power, and to restore dignity,” he said.
Speaking at the Oxford Union in London on the theme ‘From Representation to Realisation: Embodying the Constitution’s Promise’, the CJI, the second Dalit and the first Buddhist to hold India’s highest judicial office, highlighted the positive impact of the Constitution on marginalised communities and gave his example to drive home the point.
“Many decades ago, millions of citizens of India were called ‘untouchables’. They were told they
were impure.
They were told that they did not belong. They were told that they could not speak for themselves.”
“But here we are today, where a person belonging to those very people is speaking openly as the holder of the highest office in the judiciary of the country,” the CJI said.
The Chief Justice noted that the idea of representation found its most powerful and enduring expression in the vision of Dr Ambedkar, a “statesman, scholar, jurist, and social revolutionary” who rose from the most oppressed strata of Indian society.
“For Dr Ambedkar, representation was far more than a procedural matter of allocating seats. It was a moral and democratic imperative,” said CJI Gavai.
