Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju has expressed his resentment over the Judiciary ‘overstepping’ its boundaries and
‘entering’ into the ‘executive domain’.
Speaking during the India Today conclave held in Mumbai on Friday, the Minister said that the Judiciary should leave the task of running the country to the elected representatives and concentrate on reducing the pendency of cases in courts across the country.
He said while the government was taking every step to make the Indian judiciary robust, the judiciary should also respect its Constitutional boundaries and not cross lakshman rekha in the interest of the nation.
He further said that there was a lakshman rekha for everybody, which should not be crossed in the interest of nation.
As per the Minister, the Narendra Modi government has not taken a single step in the last 8.5 years to undermine the judiciary or compromise its independence.
Claiming that promoting and protecting the independence of judiciary was of utmost importance to the government, the Minister said it was equally important for the judiciary to understand that people of the country have chosen their representatives to run the country and it should let them do so.
As per the Minister, if the judiciary started getting into the executive domain, framing rules, attempting to carry out executive functions and deciding which road to be built, there would be no need for a government elected by the people.
He said during the pandemic, a Bench of the Delhi High Court had ruled that there should be a committee of experts to run the affairs related to Covid-19.
He added that the government then told the Solicitor General (Tushar Mehta) to inform the Court that this was ‘none of their business’ to tell the government how to tackle such challenges.
The Minister further mentioned the the Supreme Court order of May, 2022, which had directed both the Central government and the States to refrain from registering any cases for the offence of sedition under Section 124A.
He said the Supreme Court should have refrained from passing any order since the government told the Court that it was already reconsidering the provision.
Rijiju said the judiciary had all the right to come down heavily on the government for not listening to it, but striking an old provision of law (Section 124A IPC), despite the government assurance of looking into the same, was not a good thing.