Legal Path

न्याय में देरी अब बर्दाश्त नहीं — सुप्रीम कोर्ट का बड़ा आदेश

सुप्रीम कोर्ट ने अनुच्छेद 142 के तहत ऐतिहासिक निर्देश जारी करते हुए सभी उच्च न्यायालयों को कहा है कि आरक्षित निर्णय 3 माह के भीतर सुनाए जाएं।

जमानत आदेश उसी दिन या आदेश आरक्षित होने पर अगले दिन दिए जाएं। नियमित जमानत आदेश तुरंत ट्रायल कोर्ट को भेजे जाएं और जमानत पाए विचाराधीन कैदियों को औपचारिकताएं पूरी होते ही उसी दिन रिहा किया जाए।

सभी निर्णय उच्च न्यायालय की वेबसाइट पर 24 घंटे के भीतर अपलोड किए जाने होंगे।

सुप्रीम कोर्ट का स्पष्ट संदेश है — न्यायालयों में आने वाला हर नागरिक समय पर न्याय पाने का अधिकारी है। न्याय में अनावश्यक देरी, न्याय के उद्देश्य को ही कमजोर करती है।

न्याय केवल सुनाया ही नहीं जाना चाहिए, समय पर सुनाया जाना चाहिए।

Adv. Narendra Kumar Goswami

Electoral Purity Is Not a Luxury — It Is the Lifeblood of the Republic

The Supreme Court’s judgment upholding the legality of the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls is not merely a decision on voter lists. It is a constitutional reminder that democracy is not a street slogan, not a sentimental performance, and certainly not a convenient refuge for political hypocrisy. Democracy survives only when its foundation is clean. And in an electoral republic, that foundation is the electoral roll.

The Court has held that the Election Commission acted within the constitutional and statutory framework under Article 324, the Representation of the People Act, 1950, and the relevant rules, and that SIR has a direct nexus with the constitutional goal of free and fair elections. This is the correct constitutional position. Article 324 is not ornamental prose in the Constitution. It is the command post of electoral integrity. The Election Commission is not a clerical department meant to preserve dead entries, duplicate names, migrated persons, doubtful inclusions, and electoral distortions as if they were sacred relics.

A polluted voter list is the first assassination of democracy. The ballot box may look clean on polling day, but if the roll itself is contaminated, the result is constitutionally diseased before the first vote is cast. Those who speak of democracy while opposing every serious attempt to cleanse electoral rolls are not defending democracy; they are defending its corrosion.

The petitioners’ fear was that SIR may become a backdoor citizenship enquiry. That concern is not wholly imaginary in a constitutional democracy where State power must always be watched with suspicion. But the Supreme Court has drawn the necessary constitutional line: the Election Commission may examine questions relevant to electoral eligibility and citizenship for the limited purpose of preparing or revising electoral rolls; it cannot finally declare a person to be a non-citizen or extinguish citizenship rights. That distinction is vital. It protects both electoral purity and individual liberty.

This judgment is therefore neither a blind victory for the State nor a defeat of civil liberties. It is a disciplined constitutional balance. It says: verify, but do not persecute. Cleanse, but do not disenfranchise. Question eligibility, but do not usurp the jurisdiction of citizenship authorities. Delete only by due process, and remember that a genuine citizen is not to be sacrificed at the altar of administrative enthusiasm.

But let us be equally clear. No person has a fundamental right to pollute the electoral roll. No political party has a vested right in ghost voters, duplicate voters, migrated voters, or doubtful entries. No ideology can convert electoral impurity into constitutional virtue. The right to vote is precious precisely because it belongs only to those whom the law recognises as entitled to vote. If everyone, genuine or otherwise, must remain on the roll merely because verification is politically inconvenient, then elections become arithmetic fraud dressed up as democratic choice.

The Supreme Court has also rejected the argument that asking electors to furnish supporting material necessarily destroys the presumption arising from prior inclusion in the roll. That reasoning is sound. A presumption is not a constitutional coffin in which truth must be buried. It is rebuttable. Verification does not mean condemnation. Inquiry does not mean guilt. Due process does not mean administrative paralysis.

The real test now lies not in the judgment, but in its ex*****on. The Election Commission must behave like a constitutional sentinel, not like a political instrument. It must ensure transparency, accessible procedures, meaningful notice, proper hearing, reasoned deletion, appeal remedies, and special protection for the poor, migrants, women, elderly citizens, and those without easy documentation. Electoral purification must not become bureaucratic cruelty.

But the answer to possible abuse is not to destroy the power itself. The answer is strict constitutional supervision. The knife of surgery should not be banned because it can be misused as a weapon. The voter roll needs surgery, not slogans.

This judgment sends a message to the nation: free and fair elections do not begin with EVMs, speeches, rallies, or counting day drama. They begin with a clean electoral roll. Electoral purity is not a technicality. It is the bloodstream of democracy. Poison the roll, and you poison the Republic.

Those who truly believe in democracy must welcome verification with safeguards. Those who fear verification must explain what exactly they seek to protect.

The Constitution does not protect electoral chaos. It protects electoral legitimacy.

And legitimacy begins with one simple constitutional truth:

Democracy does not survive on emotions, slogans, or political convenience. It survives on clean electoral rolls, the rule of law, and constitutional honesty.

N.K.Goswami,Advocate,Supreme Court of India

(Writer of this article is Supreme Court Lawyer)