The Trend of Judicial Activism in Indian Context: Emerging Issue Areas
| Published date | 01 December 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00195561241248288 |
| Author | Mayengbam Nandakishwor Singh |
| Date | 01 December 2024 |
The Trend of Judicial
Activism in Indian
Context: Emerging
Issue Areas
Mayengbam Nandakishwor Singh1
Abstract
Since the dawn of Independence from the British rule, Indian democracy has been
on an experimenting trajectory route. Despite all the pragmatic loopholes in its
claim to be one of the largest democracies in the world, it is by far a reasonably
successful electoral democracy. The fundamental pillars of the government are
functioning in tandem with a reasonable democratic ethos. Being a large country
with a market in countless divisional and segmented diversities, the government
at times tends to look shaky and irresolute. During such situations, the judici-
ary becomes proactive in reminding the government about its constitutional obli-
gations. This article seeks to address the historical evolution of judicial activism
in India along with the reasons that catapult the trend of activism in the Indian
judiciary. It also explores the recurrent impasses between the executive and the
judiciary.
Keywords
Democracy, rights, Constitution, power, justice, India
Emergence of Thematic Understanding of
Judicial Activism
Conceptually, the term ‘judicial activism’, being an ambiguous term, is far from
easy to accurately dene. In the history of legal jurisprudence, Arthur M. Schlesinger,
Jr., an American public intellectual, is credited to have introduced the term ‘judicial
activism’ in a Fortune Magazine article in 1947 (Schlesinger, Jr., 1947), though he
did not clearly dene it. In general parlance, judicial activism is the trend in which
Article
Indian Journal of Public
Administration
70(4) 876–887, 2024
© 2024 IIPA
Article reuse guidelines:
in.sagepub.com/journals-permissions-india
DOI: 10.1177/00195561241248288
journals.sagepub.com/home/ipa
1 Department of Political Science, Manipur University, Imphal, Manipur, India
Corresponding author:
Mayengbam Nandakishwor Singh,Department of Political Science, Manipur University, Imphal,
Manipur 795003, India.
E-mail: nkishwors@gmail.com
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