The judgements of the Constitution bench of Supreme Court since its inception have been compiled in two volumes by a senior lawyer, who says the apex court was now playing the role of an appellate adjudicator more than its primary role of being a constitutional arbiter.
“Nobody has dealt with all the constitutional bench judgements of the supreme court in past 66 years,” claimed the author and senior advocate Govind Goel.
“Constitutional bench verdicts in the Supreme Court are now an endangered species and the court has embraced the role of an appellate adjudicator more than its traditional and primary role of being a constitutional arbiter or as perennial source of authoritative law of comparitively greater longevity,” he said here.
The ‘Statement of Indian Law’ deals with the evolution of law in India through constitution bench judgements since the inception of Supreme Court.
“The first volume under the head of constitutional law itself has been categorised into seven broad areas– from fundamental rights as also issues pertaining to all the constitutional organs and a large omnibus residue of other constitutional issues,” Goel said.
The second volume deals with evolution of law by Supreme Court benches of five or more judges in respect of non-constitutional and residual issues, such as administrative law, laws relating to services under the state, industrial laws and law of taxation, he said.
Total of 2294 judgements have been covered in the two volumes, including the famous verdicts of National Judicial Appointment Commissions (NJAC) and Keshvanand Bharti.
Chief Justice of India T S Thakur in the foreword of the book said “Goel’s book sums up an array of judgments of the constitution benches of Supreme Court right from inception and comes as a much needed and long awaited publication for the bench, the bar and the students of law alike.”
Former Chief Justice of India M N Venkatachalliah said “the work is a tribute to the sterling contribution of the apex court to the process of transformation of a feudal social order into a modern, egalitarian industry society, a transformation that could, but for the inspiring role of the court as an agent of change, become painful and violent as witnessed in other parts of the world.”
Noted legal luminary N R Madhava Menon said that it was an unusual book which one would not find in the market shelves. “It deals with the evolution of law through constitution bench judgements and will be very useful to researchers, accademicians, lawyers and experts,” he said.
Founding director of Chandigarh Judicial Academy Virender Kumar said Goel’s work essentially contains compiled, annotated, chronologically classified Constitution Bench decisions of the apex court since inception.
(Source : PTI)
