CONTENTS

LECTURE 1

THE SUPREME COURT AND POLITICS

1. Chief justice mahajan and the daring od constitutional interpretation 1

2. Critics and judges: The need to move from criticism to critique 5

3. The court as a centre of power and its vulnerability 10

4. The court is kept busy by the state 13

5. Independence of judiciary forbids innovation in the structure of the supreme court 14

6. The court's role in oppositional politics 16

7. Epilogue: A plea for politics 26

LECTURE II

THE TWILIGHT OF LEGITIMACY: THE SUPREME COURT AND THE EMERGENCY

1. The three phases of the emergency 31

2. The supreme court in agony 34

3. The besieged justices 41

4. The prime minister's election case: Whether to stay or not to stay is the question 46

5. Retroactivity and free and fair elections 66

6. Kesavananda in the ?AIR?: Self-created judicial vicissitudes 70

7. The enexpected and the anacceptable: A slur on the supreme court 76

8. The grandiose and minimal strategies of argument in Shiv Kant 79

9. Bhanudas: The last nail in the coffin on personal liberty 116

LECTURE III

THE POST-EMERGENCY SUPREME COURT: A POPULISTIC QUEST FOR LEGITIMATION

1. The resource supreme court: Promises and perils 121

2. The dissolution case: The supreme court at the bar of politics 127

3. Commissions of enquiry: Political warfare and judicial role models 136

4. When is the same matter not quite the same? 141

5. Political realities and judicial priocess 146

6. On how to avoid legicide of civil liberties: The message pf Maneka 151

7. The birthpangs of due process: The meaning of Maneka 157

8. The right to property and the post emergency supreme court 167

9. The court as a corrector of emergency excesses 173

10. Mustard oil in the ninth schedule: Oil over troubled waters 178

11. The crisis of credibility and politics of hate 188

12. On the transfer of judges 198

13. The saga of special curts 209

14. The non-violent ghost: Hegemony alias harmony 213

15. The hierarchic notion of independence of judiciary 218

16. The successor trial: politics of special courts 224

17. The post-emergency supreme court and prison justice 233

CONCLUSION

THE SEARECH FOR LEGITIMATION: POPULISM AND THE COURT 246