IMPACT OF PUBLIC INTEREST LITIGATION IN INDIA: TRANSFORMING CONSTITUTIONAL JUSTICE AND ACCESS TO RIGHTS

The evolution of India's jurisprudence following the emergency is best epitomized by Public Interest Litigation. Though the emergency destroyed the constitutional order and led to the aggressive consolidation of the executive and passive withdrawal of the judiciary, it also resulted in innovation of Public Interest Litigations. PILs transformed the doctrine of locus standi from a restrictor of access to legal remedies to a tool for mass access to constitutional justice. From its primitive form in the late 1970s when judges like Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer and Justice P.N. Bhagwati began to consider letters from prisoners as writ petitions, this paper traces the development of Public Interest Litigations to the modern form of judicial governance, made possible by the supervision of the judiciary. Starting with the landmark cases of Hussainara Khatoon v. State of Bihar and S.P. Gupta v. Union of India, PILs provided and expanded the guarantee of the constitutional rights codified in Articles 14, 19, 21, 32 and 226 of the Constitution to bonded labourers, undertrials and slum dwellers. Courts also engaged in active justice by issuing continuing mandamus and setting up oversight committees to monitor compliance with their orders. While the constant evolution of Public Interest Litigations transformed the Hon’ble Supreme Court from a passive Court to an active one, facilitating its function as the guardian of the Constitution and enabling its function to articulate the rights of the citizens.