SC should not make law in place of Parliament: Judge Katju

SC should not make law in place of parliament. Supreme court is not an interim parliament, said Justice Markandeya Katju. He added that Supreme Court judges should do their jobs and not become a Parliament and make laws. The comment was made during the hearing of an inter-country adoption case, reports The Indian Express.

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Justice Markandeya Katju, a sitting judge of the Supreme Court, on Tuesday unleashed a stinging criticism of the tendency of the apex court to don the role of law-maker.

“Can the Supreme Court convert itself into an interim Parliament and make laws in vacuum? Supreme Court judges should do their jobs and not become a Parliament and make laws,” Justice Katju said.

The comments from the senior judge came during the hearing of an inter-country adoption case.

The case deals with the six-year long search of 30-year-old man of Indian origin, adopted by a German couple in 1973, for his biological mother. The man, Arun Dhole, had moved the Supreme Court in 2005 after the Bombay High Court rejected his complaint that neither the Maharashtra Police nor the adoption agency was helping him trace his mother, who is referred to as just “young lady” in the official records.

Dhole claims he was “kidnapped” and given in adoption to the German couple when he was just four weeks’ old, on the “strong recommendation” of a political family in the state. The adoption centre officials however maintain that his mother had “abandoned” him and disappeared, never to get back in touch with the centre to know about the baby.

Dhole hinges his case on a 1984 Supreme Court judgment of Lakshmi Kant Pandey vs Union of India in which the court held that foreign adoptive parents could reveal information about the biological parents to their adopted child once the latter reaches the “age of maturity”. This judgment is widely believed to have clarified the law on inter-country adoption.

“What is the Supreme Court saying here? I am against the Lakshmi Kant Pandey judgment and other Supreme Court judgments like this. What is this... if there is no legislation the Supreme Court starts making laws! Judges should just do their jobs,” Justice Katju said. “I will raise my voice against this, and will keep on raising it.”

“The Supreme Court is not an interim Parliament,” Justice Katju added, saying otherwise Parliament should be “closed” and shifted to the Supreme Court. Justice Katju’s observations follow on the heels of a recent declaration by CJI S H Kapadia that the SC would not hear “matters of poliicy”.