This has been a real debate and issue in Court about the powers of the Supreme Court under Article 142 of the Indian Constitution. This article talks about Interpretation of Article 142 of the Constitution.
Article 142 provides that the Supreme Court in exercise of its jurisdiction, may pass such decrees or orders as is necessary for doing complete justice in the matter pending before it.
The main purpose of Article 142(1) is that Supreme Court is not dependent on executive for implementation of its decrees and orders. Such dependency on executive would violate the principles of independence of Judiciary and Separation of Powers which were held to constitute the basic structure of the Constitution.
The interpretation of complete justice given by the Supreme Court has given it a different direction. The interpretation has not been consistent enough.
The first case in the list is Prem Chand Garg v. Excise Commr[1]. The question before the constitutional bench in this particular case was, whether the Supreme Court could frame a rule or issue an order which would be inconsistent with and of the fundamental rights. Answering it negatively the majority observed that this Court can make orders to do complete justice, must not only be consistent with the fundamental rights but it cannot be in contrary with the substantive provisions of the relevant statutory laws.
This view of Prem Chand case was approved in Naresh Shridhar Mirajkar v. State of Maharashtra[2] and A.R. Antulay v. R.S. Nayak[3].
This view was overturned by the Apex Court in Delhi Judicial Services Assn. v. State of Gujarat[4], where three- member bench observed that to do “complete justice” the court’s power under Article 142(1) is entirely of different level and of a different quality. No prohibition in any ordinary laws acts as a limitation on the Constitutional powers under Article 142.
These observations were approved by the Constitution Bench in Union Carbide Corp. v. Union of India[5] saying that prohibitions or provisions contained in ordinary laws cannot ipso facto, act as limitations on the constitutional powers under Article 142.
In M.C. Mehta v Kamal Nath[6], it was held that the exercise of power under Article 142 of the Constitution cannot be used into aid in a situation where action under it would contravene a specific provision of a statute.
It is submitted that from the above decisions rendered, Garg case[7] reflects the correct position in law and opposite view taken in Delhi Judicial Service Assn.[8] and others is not correct due to following reasons:
- The Supreme Court of India also has the power of Judicial review and it enjoys the power to strike down statute law. But, without striking down, the Supreme Court cannot ignore or disregard statutory provisions merely because Article 142 is a constitutional provision.
- Article 142 deals with procedural aspects and the two words “complete justice” cannot enlarge the perimeter of the article. In construing the expression “complete justice”, the scheme of the article should be looked into. It is not right to construe words in a vacuum and then insert the meaning .
The marginal note subjoined to Article 142 supports the viewpoint that the Article does not confer any substantive power on the Apex Court. The marginal note speaks about enforcement and discovery and not abut complete justice. If the makers of the Constitution wanted to confer the power to override the statutory provision, its importance would have been mentioned out in the marginal note. Marginal note is treated as a part of a statute and a permissible internal aid in construing a statute.
The two words “complete justice” cannot be read in isolation. They occur in Article 142 of which clause (2) also forms part. A bare reading of the second clause of Article 142 of the Constitution proves clearly that Article 142 is an article of procedure.
Clause (2) of Article 142 gives 3 different powers on the Supreme Court:
- Securing the attendance of persons before it.
- Discovery and production of documents.
- Investigation and Punishment of contempt of
The first two powers belong to the area of the law of evidence which is a procedural law. The third power if read with Article 129 shows that it also deals with an aspect of procedure.
All these factors strongly strengthen the view that Article 142 is a provision of procedure and not a substantive law and therefore the interpretation put on “complete justice” that the statutory provisions maybe overridden, is clearly incorrect.
All this signifies that the complete justice can be invoked for procedural purposes only. Thus, Article 142 does not confer substantive power on the Supreme Court to do ‘complete justice’.
[1] (1963) AIR 996
[2] (1966) SCR (3) 744
[3] (1988) AIR 1531, (1988) SCR Supp. (1) 1
[4] (1991) SCR (3) 936
[5] (1989) 3 SCC 38
[6] (1997)1 SCC 388
[7] (1963) AIR 996
[8] (1991) SCR (3) 936