Class 11 Political Science Chapter 6 Judiciary NCERT Solutions

Q. What are the different ways in which the independence of the judiciary is ensured? Choose the odd ones out.
(i) Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is consulted in the appointment of other judges of the Supreme Court.
(ii) Judges are generally not removed before the age of retirement.
(iii) Judge of a High Court cannot be transferred to another High Court.
(iv) Parliament has no say in the appointment of judges.

Answer: (iii) is the odd one out. This statement is factually wrong, the Supreme Court has the power to transfer High Court judges from one High Court to another, so this is not a measure ensuring independence, it is simply an incorrect statement. The other three, (i), (ii) and (iv), are genuine measures that help ensure judicial independence.

Q. Does independence of the judiciary mean that the judiciary is not accountable to anyone? Write your answer in not more than 100 words.

Answer: No, independence of the judiciary does not mean an absence of accountability. It only means that the other organs of government must not restrain the judiciary’s functioning or interfere with its decisions, and that judges must be able to act without fear or favour. The judiciary is itself part of the country’s democratic political structure, so it remains accountable to the Constitution, to democratic traditions, and to the people. There is also a (though difficult) constitutional procedure for removing judges, which shows that independence and accountability exist together, independence never means arbitrariness.

Q. What are the different provisions in the Constitution in order to maintain the independence of the judiciary?

Answer:
1. The legislature is not involved in the appointment of judges, keeping party politics out of the process.
2. Judges have a fixed tenure and security of tenure, holding office until the retirement age, removable only in exceptional cases.
3. Judges’ salaries and allowances are not subject to the legislature’s approval, ensuring financial independence.
4. Judges’ actions and decisions cannot be personally criticised, the contempt-of-court power protects this, and Parliament cannot discuss a judge’s conduct except during removal proceedings.

Q. Read the news report below and identify: What is the case about? Who has been the beneficiary in the case? Who is the petitioner in the case? Visualise the different arguments the company would have put forward. What arguments would the farmers have put forward?
(The Supreme Court ordered Reliance Energy to pay Rs. 300 crore to Dahanu farmers, because the company’s thermal power plant’s pollution devastated farming and fisheries in the area.)

Answer:
The case: This case is about the environmental pollution caused by Reliance Energy’s thermal power plant and the compensation owed to the chikoo-growing farmers of the Dahanu area for their economic losses.
Beneficiary: The chikoo-growing farmers of the Dahanu area.
Petitioner: The chikoo growers, who petitioned the court against the pollution caused by the thermal power plant.
The company’s likely arguments: the plant provides employment and contributes to power generation; setting up pollution-control measures takes time and heavy investment; crop failure cannot be blamed on the plant alone.
The farmers’ likely arguments: the region was a self-sustaining agricultural and fishing economy before the plant arrived; the first crop failure came the very next year after the plant started operating; fly ash from the plant polluted groundwater and the entire ecosystem; despite an order to install pollution-control equipment, years passed with no action taken.

Q. Read the following news report and identify the governments at different levels, the role of the Supreme Court, the elements of the working of the judiciary and executive, and the policy, legislation, implementation and interpretation issues involved.
(The Centre and Delhi government jointly approached the Supreme Court to allow low-sulphur diesel as an alternative to CNG for the city’s buses.)

Answer:
Governments at different levels: the Union government (Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas) and the State government of Delhi, working jointly.
Role of the Supreme Court: enforcing its own earlier order requiring CNG for pollution control, and now considering the governments’ request for some flexibility (allowing low-sulphur diesel too), meaning the Court is reviewing and possibly modifying its own earlier ruling.
Judiciary-executive overlap: the Court’s binding CNG order on one hand, and the executive explaining the practical difficulty and time needed to implement it fully, this back-and-forth is itself a good example of the ongoing dialogue between the judiciary and the executive.
Policy, legislation, implementation and interpretation issues: setting up an expert committee (the Mashelkar Committee) to suggest an Auto Fuel Policy is policy-making; the deadline for converting the entire bus fleet to CNG is an implementation issue; and the Court deciding how much relaxation to allow in its own order is a matter of interpretation.

Q. The following is a statement about Ecuador. What similarities or differences do you find between this example and the judicial system in India?
“It would be helpful if a body of common law, or judicial precedent, existed that could clarify a journalist’s rights. Unfortunately, Ecuador’s courts don’t work that way. Judges are not forced to respect the rulings of higher courts in previous cases. Unlike the US, an appellate judge in Ecuador (or elsewhere in South America, for that matter) need not provide a written decision explaining the legal basis of a ruling. A judge may rule one way today and the opposite way, in a similar case, tomorrow, without explaining why.”

Answer:
Difference: India’s judicial system is built on the principle of precedent, lower courts are bound to follow the rulings of higher courts, especially the Supreme Court. This gives India legal certainty and predictability, which the passage says is missing in Ecuador.
Similarity: in India too, the Supreme Court can review its own earlier judgments (Article 137), so some flexibility exists in India as well, though this is the exception, not the rule, unlike Ecuador where every case seems to work this way.
Conclusion: India’s system balances stability with flexibility, while the Ecuador example described here shows an almost complete absence of stability.

Q. Read the following statements and match them with the different jurisdictions the Supreme Court can exercise, Original, Appellate, and Advisory.
(a) The government wanted to know if it can pass a law about the citizenship status of residents of Pakistan-occupied areas of Jammu and Kashmir.
(b) In order to resolve the dispute about river Cauvery, the government of Tamil Nadu wants to approach the court.
(c) Court rejected the appeal by people against the eviction from the dam site.

Answer:
(a) Advisory jurisdiction. The government is seeking the Supreme Court’s advice before making a law, this is precisely what advisory jurisdiction is for.
(b) Original jurisdiction. This is a dispute between two States (Tamil Nadu and Karnataka), heard directly by the Supreme Court.
(c) Appellate jurisdiction. Here, the Court is deciding an appeal made in an ongoing case.

Q. In what way can public interest litigation help the poor?

Answer:
1. Before PIL, only the personally aggrieved person could approach the courts, now someone else (a lawyer, an organisation, a concerned citizen) can file on their behalf.
2. Poor and deprived groups, like undertrials or bonded labourers, often cannot approach the courts themselves, PIL opened this path for them.
3. Cases like Hussainara Khatoon and Sunil Batra showed that even a newspaper report or a prisoner’s note could set a case in motion.
4. It also helped establish rights like clean environment and decent living as rights of society, especially benefiting weaker sections.

Q. Do you think that judicial activism can lead to a conflict between the judiciary and the executive? Why?

Answer: Yes, there is potential for conflict.
1. Under judicial activism, courts have given direct orders on matters like reducing pollution, initiating corruption investigations, or bringing about electoral reform, matters traditionally seen as the executive’s job.
2. This blurs the line between the executive’s and the judiciary’s work, and the executive may feel the court is intruding into its domain.
3. On the other hand, if the executive fails to perform its duty properly (for instance, not enforcing pollution control), judicial intervention may be seen as necessary in the public interest.
4. Balance is therefore essential, each organ must respect the other’s jurisdiction, or tensions in the democratic structure can grow.

Q. How is judicial activism related to the protection of fundamental rights? Has it helped in expanding the scope of fundamental rights?

Answer: Yes, judicial activism has significantly expanded the scope of fundamental rights.
1. Through PIL, groups that could not previously access the courts on issues like the right against exploitation (bonded labour, hazardous child labour) gained a route to justice.
2. The courts took up cases involving the blinding of jail inmates by police, inhuman conditions in stone quarries, and sexual exploitation of children.
3. Rights like clean air, unpolluted water and decent living gained recognition as rights of society as a whole.
4. In this way, judicial activism has made fundamental rights genuinely meaningful for the poor and disadvantaged, well beyond simply existing on paper.