BEYOND THE ACTIVISM-RESTRAINT DIVIDE: JUDICIAL BEHAVIOUR IN THE CONSTITUTIONAL JURISPRUDENCE OF INDIAN COURTS

The role of courts in democracies is often described in terms of competing ideas of judicial activism and judicial restraint. While these concepts are widely invoked in discussions of constitutional adjudication, they do not always capture the variation in judicial approaches across case types. This paper examines the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of India through a doctrinal analysis of select judgments. It considers rights-expansive rulings such as Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India, alongside decisions that defer from interfering in legislative or executive matters, including Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India and BALCO Employees’ Union v. Union of India. The paper analyses differences in the level of scrutiny applied, the interpretive methods adopted, and the scope of the relief granted. It argues that the Court’s recent constitutional decisions do not follow a single model of either activism or restraint. Instead, the jurisprudence reveals a more varied pattern in which the Court adopts different approaches depending on the nature of the constitutional issue before it. Through this analysis, the paper seeks to provide an account of how the Supreme Court approaches its institutional role in contemporary constitutional adjudication.