How the courts check Parliament and the executive — and how ordinary citizens can reach the courts through PIL.
Judicial review is the power of the courts to examine the constitutionality of legislative and executive actions, drawn from Articles 13, 32, 226 and 245. It rests on the principle that in India, unlike in the UK, the Constitution is supreme, not Parliament.
In Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala (1973), a 13-judge bench held that Parliament's power to amend the Constitution under Article 368 is not unlimited — it cannot alter the Constitution's "basic structure" (federalism, secularism, judicial review, free and fair elections, etc., though the list is not exhaustively fixed).
Judicial activism refers to courts proactively interpreting rights expansively — often going beyond a strictly literal reading of the text — to protect citizens, especially the disadvantaged. Its main vehicle has been Public Interest Litigation (PIL), pioneered by Justice P.N. Bhagwati and Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer from the late 1970s, which relaxed the traditional rule of locus standi so that any public-spirited person or organisation could approach the court on behalf of those unable to do so themselves. Hussainara Khatoon v. State of Bihar (1979), on the plight of undertrial prisoners, is regarded as the first major PIL.
Critics argue that judicial activism has, at times, tipped into judicial overreach — encroaching on matters properly left to the legislature and executive.
Download this topic's notes as a PDF, or search uploaded materials.
