Opinion - Letters to the Editor   

Who is supreme?

Thank you for the ample and fair-minded review of my book The Supreme Court versus The Constitution ("The Constitution: who, if anybody, is supreme?" Jan. 31). But the review calls for a few corrections.

First, I have affirmed at many places in the book, and questioned it at none, that the Supreme Court is the final authority for interpreting the Constitution, and for striking down any law or constitutional amendment in conflict with any interpretation of the Constitution by the Court so long as the interpretation is within the well recognised limits of the word "interpretation."

Secondly, what I have questioned is any (mis)use of this authority by the Court (i) for reading "consultation with" as "consent of" as the Court has done, (ii) for interpolating concepts into the Constitution which were rejected by the Constituent Assembly, as the Court has done, for example by reading "process established by law" as "due process," (iii) for striking down a constitutional amendment not on the basis of any interpretation of the Constitution but, as the Court has done, on the basis of the so-called "doctrine of basic features," which is not to be found anywhere in the Constitution.

Thirdly, I have questioned the Court's authority to strike down a constitutional amendment made in complete conformity with the constitutional provisions for making amendments, and not in conflict with any part of the Constitution or any interpretation of it.

Fourthly, while I do not think that case law is a suitable alternative to laws made by the legislature, I agree that a case law that fills a gap left by the legislature should stand. But I think it should stand only so long as the legislature does not fill the gap on its own.

Pran Chopra,
New Delhi

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