Digital Commons Network^™

This article analyzes how the Supreme Court of India, through its activism and assertiveness, has emerged as arguably the most powerful court among democratic polities. Over the past four and a half decades, the Court dramatically expanded its role in the realm of rights and governance, asserting the power to invalidate constitutional amendments under the basic structure doctrine, control judicial appointments, and govern in the areas of environmental policy, monitoring and investigating government corruption, and promoting electoral transparency and accountability. In this article, I argue that the Court’s shift toward greater, yet selective, assertiveness in India’s governance can most adequately …

cross the United States, voters in many states have enacted initiative constitutional amendments that abrogate protections for equality and fundamental rights. In most cases, state supreme courts have upheld the validity of these amendments, undermining protections for fundamental rights at the state level. This Article proposes a novel solution to this problem: it argues for the application of the basic structure doctrine in the review of constitutional amendments by state supreme courts. Under this doctrine, the Supreme Court of India (like constitutional courts in other nations) asserted the power to invalidate amendments that abrogate "basic features" of the Indian Constitution …

Over the past decade, the push for electoral reform in India and the United States – the world’s two largest democracies – has been promi- nent in the politics and governance of both nations. The supreme courts in each country have played important, but distinct, roles in recent electoral reform efforts, responding to different facets and regimes of political corruption. In the 1990s, the Indian Supreme Court became increasingly assertive in requiring greater levels of dis- closure and transparency for political parties in India. In a series of decisions in 2002 and 2003, the Indian Supreme Court challenged the Central …

This article examines two critical "moments" in the expansion of judicial power in India: the assertion of the basic structure doctrine and the development of the PIL regime in the post-Emergency Indian Court. The Indian Supreme Court asserted two key functional roles in these moments: (1) the role of a constitutional guardian in asserting its role in preserving the basic structure of the Constitution, and (2) as a champion of the rule of law and responsible governance in developing PIL. Though both moments were significant in the empowerment of the Indian Supreme Court, I argue that development of PIL was …