Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan :'Judiciary makes executive accountable',

'Judiciary makes executive accountable'
14 Jun 2008, 0135 hrs IST, Dhananjay Mahapatra,TNN


NEW DELHI: It is the judiciary which makes the executive legally responsible to the people for its actions, Chief Justice of India (CJI) K G Balakrishnan has said giving the formal stamp on the watchdog status of the courts.

Proper functioning of a democracy requires harmonious balance in the functioning of the three separate state organs, he said.

Differentiating judiciary from the other two organs, he said this provided the people with 'auxiliary precaution' required to ensure that the government functioned in favour of the people.

"When the executive asserts itself in a manner that it accords to itself increasing power and an unusually high level of control over state functions, the judiciary has a right to exercise its constitutionally-mandated role and exert pressure by providing oversight in order to maintain the balance between co-equals," he said. It was the principle of 'democratic accountability' that determines the legitimacy of a public authority under the Constitution, he said.

While the legislature was directly elected by the people, the executive was made accountable to the legislature through the principle of collective responsibility of the Cabinet and the individual responsibility of the ministers, Justice Balakrishnan said.

Though the judiciary was vested with the power to interpret law and settle disputes arising between government and private parties, it was also saddled with responsibility to ensure that corrective measures were taken where government failed. "Judicial power also includes the power to take corrective action whenever other branches of the government fail in their duty to respect the rights of the citizens and protect them," the CJI said answering a wide-range of questions from TOI.

In the endeavour to secure the rights of the people from being transgressed by the executive, the courts for arriving at a decision could not be accused of embarking on a 'law-making' exercise, which was the sole discretion of the legislature, he felt. "Judicial determination of whether the other branches of the government are, or are not, functioning in favour of the society cannot be said to constitute 'law-making', but is a exercise of judicial discretion where standards established by the Constitution are not met," he said.