Opinion - Letters to the Editor   

Extent of power

Sir, — The Lok Sabha Speaker, Somnath Chatterjee, has raised the issue of the Supreme Court crossing its limits in Jharkhand. Judge George Wythe of Richmond, Virginia, said in 1782: "If the whole legislature — an event to be deprecated — should overlap the boundaries prescribed to them by the people, I, in administering the justice of the country, will meet the united powers at my seat in the tribunal and pointing to the Constitution will say to them `Here is the limit to your authority; hither shall you go, but no further'" (quoted by Lord Acton in Essays in the History of Liberty.)

The Supreme Court's Jharkhand order is a reflection on how far the legislators can go in scuttling democracy.

A.T. Thiruvengadam,
Chennai

* * *

Sir, — This refers to Mr. Chatterjee's claim that even in Jharkhand, the problem was resolved after executive intervention. The executive stepped in only after the Court directed the pro tem Speaker to advance the date of the composite floor test. It needed the judiciary's prompting to do its duty. And prompting was what the court did.

T.V. Govindan,
Melmaruvathur, T.N.

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