New Delhi: Indian courts need to stop “blindly” importing judgments from US courts and “undermining” Indian values, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s English mouthpiece, Organiser, has said.
In a cover story on the judiciary, the magazine has called for “indigenising jurisprudence”. Its front cover features Lady Justice blindfolded with the US flag, with the words ‘stop blind import, Milord’.
“In many cases, the Bharatiya courts blindly import judgments delivered by the US courts, as has happened in the UAPA-related cases since 2011. This trend of invoking Americanism in interpreting our constitutional laws undermines the idea of Bharatiya jurisprudence and the corresponding value system based on dharmic ethos,” reads the text below the cover photo.
This was a reference to three 2011 Supreme Court judgments that the court overruled last month, when it held that mere membership of a banned association is an offence under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
However, an editorial in the same issue of Organiser says that many judges are “advocating” the indigenisation of the legal system and rejecting the trend of importing American rulings, which is a welcome step forward.
Referring to a statement issued by 21 former high court judges on 30 March against legalising same-sex marriages, it says: “Former judges, in their statement, urged ‘the conscious members of the society including those who are pursuing the issue of same-sex marriage in the Supreme Court to refrain from doing so in the best interest of Bharatiya society and culture’.
According to the editorial, the judges called it “a cancerous problem” that the West is facing and which vested interest groups are trying to import into Bharat through the “misuse” of the judiciary.
In 2018, the top court had struck down section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalised same-sex relationships. On 13 March this year, the Supreme Court referred a batch of pleas seeking legal recognition of same-sex marriages to a Constitution Bench, calling it a matter of “seminal importance”.
“Equating same-sex relations to the institution of marriage is going to the other extreme. In the Bharatiya tradition and laws, marriage as an institution is beyond a contract or legal registration,” said the editorial.
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Criticism of SC verdicts
In another article in Organiser, C. K. Saji Narayanan, a former president of the RSS-affiliated trade union Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, criticised three judgments the top court delivered in 2018. These had decriminalised homosexuality and adultery, and allowed women of all ages to enter Sabarimala temple in Kerala. He claimed that these judgments were examples of the consequences of western models being imported into India.
“The month of September 2018 saw three most important judgments on Sabarimala women’s entry, decriminalising adultery and homosexuality, which imported American and Western principles in the name of ‘Constitutional morality’,” he says in the article.
He further says that “by declaring the right to sexual autonomy” and “right to the choice of a sexual partner as part of the right to life guaranteed under Article 21”, the top court has committed a “grave mischief”.
“It [Supreme Court] evolved a theory that adultery or promiscuous sex (sexual autonomy) is a “constitutional value” and “an important pillar and an insegregable facet of individual liberty. Here comes the question, how can animal lust be considered a fundamental right?” Narayanan asks in the article.
In another piece, columnist Arvind Kumar questions the Supreme Court judgment that has changed the process of choosing election commissioners. The court had ruled last month that a committee consisting of the prime minister, the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, and the chief justice of India must pick the chief election commissioner (CEC) and election commissioners (ECs).
“The ruling gives new meanings to the terms ‘Fundamental Rights’ and ‘equality’ when it effectively insists that these terms entitle the Chief Justice of India to become the co-President, the co-Prime Minister, and the co-Chief Election Commissioner, while also wielding the powers of the Parliament of India all at the same time! The Supreme Court has thus outdone even the Supreme Court of Pakistan which is known for being a power centre that routinely makes moves to grab power,” the column says.
(Edited by Anumeha Saxena)
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