Social Justice Benches of Supreme Court of India

After being sworn in as the Chief Justice of India, a laudable step taken by Justice JS Khehar was to revive the popular social justice bench that was set up in December 2014, by reversing his predecessor Justice TS Thakur’s decision. This has been a very welcoming step on his part as the need of this special bench was being strongly felt with the piling up of cases related to social justice before the Supreme Court for many years. The Bench ahs started functioning from December 12, 2016.

Background

In December 2014, when Justice HL Dattu was the Chief Justice of India (CJI), the Supreme Court had issued a notification to set up a special Bench known as the Social Justice Bench. The Bench was constituted to specially deal with matters in the domain of ‘social justice’ which were pending before the Supreme Court for several years. The objective behind this was to adopt a specialized approach towards these cases of social justice by their early disposal, which in turn would help the masses realize the fruits of the rights guaranteed to them under the Constitution of India. Some of the issues related to social justice pending at that time were: release of surplus food grains for the use of the people living in drought affected areas, to frame a fresh scheme for public distribution of food grains, taking steps to prevent untimely death of women and children, hygiene of midday meals provided under the Midday meal schemes, night shelter for homeless and destitute, equality in providing medical facilities to citizens irrespective of economic conditions, hygienic and clean drinking water and secured living conditions for women forced into prostitution.

Composition and Manner of Working of Social Benches

The Bench first comprised of Justice Madan B Lokur and Justice UU Lalit and the Bench used to sit for two hours to once a week to deal with these important issues affecting a large number of deprived and discriminated population, expeditiously. The Bench, as before, is to be a two-judge Bench with the previous judges comprising Bench.

The revived Bench is now to sit on a daily basis in order to make the disposal of cases even speedier.  The Bench is also required to sit on every working Friday at 2 pm to monitor the implementation of its directions and authorities concerned.

It is now to hear matters relating to the lackadaisical approach of governments and police in stopping human trafficking, tracing missing children, providing hygienic midday meals, welfare of construction workers and rehabilitation of acid attack victims and protecting women’s dignity by reining in lumpen elements who circulated pornographic material. In other words, all the fresh Public Interest Litigations filed before the Supreme Court are now to be dealt with by the new Bench.

Achievements of the Bench

The Bench while dealing with the issue of the plight of acid attack victims has come up with a very significant step. It provided for an institutional mechanism for rehabilitation of victims of acid attacks and it also forced the Centre and States to draw a strict regime for the counter sale of the corrosive substances used in acid attack. The second achievement was with relation to the equitable distribution of building cess collected by the government. The Bench forced the government to make efficient utilization of the 2% cess collected on the cost of construction from builders to the betterment and welfare of construction workers and their children’s education. The amount collected by way of cess is now Rs. 20,000 crore. The Centre has now framed a policy for the registration of all construction workers under the Employees Provident Fund Office.

Drawbacks in its Functions

Although the Bench was very vibrant at the time of its constitution, it suffered a very big setback when Chief Justice of India TS Thakur had done away with the existence of the Bench and distributed the matters to several other Benches. This led to increasing pendency of cases and not a single judgement after that by the Bench. Another discrepancy is noticed by many critics in the approach of the Bench. Seeing the kind of cases coming up before the Bench, it is a necessity to exert pressure on the governments or authorities to implement the benefits and rights properly. But again a question arises on judicial activism (interference of judiciary in the functioning of the legislature of government). As ‘Separation of Power’ is a part of the basic structure of our Constitution, a question can well be raised on the judiciary exceeding its powers under its domain. This may lead to a loss of faith of the government on the judiciary, which may in the long run make the government defiant in following the directions of the judiciary. Since the judges are appointed by President or Governor, it may lead to loss of transparency in appointment of judges also.

So the best way the Bench can achieve this is to maintain transparency in its decision making and ensure that its orders are not unreasonable for the government.

Conclusion

At present, out of 200 cases that are pending before the Supreme Court, 65 cases are being transferred to this Bench and from now on the fresh PILs will come before this Bench. The Bench is expected to function in an efficient manner of effective disposal of justice. But its success totally depends on the way its functions are performed and monitored. It is a very big challenge before our present CJI to ensure that the Bench performs its functions and attains its objectives.