Prakash Karat says SC fails to stand up for constitution

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Former CPM general secretary Prakash Karat has said the Supreme Court has given precedence to faith over the rights of women in recent judgment on Sabarimala.

In an article in party mouthpiece Deshabhi-mani, the CPM leader said the judiciary has yielded to the executive. It is a product of the concerted effort by the government.

He said the Ayodhya verdict revealed a failure to stand up for the secular principle enshrined in the Constitution. While proclaiming its commitment to uphold constitutional values and the secular basis for adjudicating a property dispute, the net result of the verdict has given precedence to faith and belief of one side.

This compromise with majoritarianism will have serious consequences and embolden the Hindutva forces to further challenge the secular principle of the state, he said.

According to him, a similar vacillation has been seen in the manner in which the review petitions on the Sabarimala verdict of the five-member bench has been dealt with.

In a departure from the established norm regarding the hearing of review petitions, the majority judgment has referred general issues concerning matters being heard by other benches of the court to a wider seven-member bench and kept the review petitions pending.

Mr Karat said the bench had only to see if there was discovery of new and important evidence, or, an error in the face of the record to allow a review. Instead of doing so, the majority of three judges has in a circuitous way sought to re-open the historic judgment on women's entry into Sabarimala delivered by the five-member constitutional bench.

Here again, the motivation for this unusual method is giving precedence to faith over the rights of women. The failures of the Supreme Court currently are not the result of any aberrant behavior of a single chief justice, or, a handful of judges. It is a product of the concerted effort by the government.

In the past six years, the Modi government has been intervening with regard to appointment of judges and their promotion as chief justices of various high courts, he alleged.  The last one being how Justice Akhil Kureshi was stopped from being appointed as chief justice of Madhya Pradesh high court and sent instead to the Tripura high court.