Q.Trace the emergence of BJP as a significant force in post-Emergency politics.

Judicial Review Limits – From Intuition to Precision

Think of a referee in a football match. The referee can blow the whistle, show yellow cards, and even send players off. But the referee cannot change the rules of the game mid-match, cannot decide which team should win based on personal preference, and cannot overrule the basic structure of the sport itself. The referee's power is real, but it has boundaries.

Judicial review works the same way. It is the power of courts (especially the Supreme Court and High Courts in India) to examine laws and executive actions and strike them down if they violate the Constitution. But this power is not absolute. The limits on judicial review are the boundaries that prevent courts from becoming a super-legislature or a super-executive.

The Core Intuition

The Constitution creates three organs: the legislature (makes laws), the executive (implements laws), and the judiciary (interprets laws and settles disputes). Each has its own domain. Judicial review is the judiciary's tool to ensure the other two organs stay within constitutional bounds. But if the judiciary used this tool without any restraint, it would upset the balance of power.

The limits on judicial review answer one question: How far can a court go in telling the legislature or executive that they are wrong?

The Precise Statement

The Major Limits Explained

1. The Doctrine of Separation of Powers

Courts cannot legislate. They can strike down a law, but they cannot write a new one in its place. If Parliament passes a law that violates fundamental rights, the Supreme Court can declare it void — but the Court cannot draft a replacement law. That job belongs to Parliament.

Similarly, courts cannot run the government. They can order an investigation into a scam, but they cannot decide tax rates or foreign policy. The boundary is clear: review, not govern.

2. The Doctrine of Political Questions

Some issues are inherently political and non-justiciable. Courts refuse to hear matters that involve policy choices best left to the legislature or executive. For example, the wisdom of a particular economic policy, the adequacy of national security measures, or the decision to sign a treaty — these are political questions, not legal ones.

The court asks: Is there a legal standard to decide this? If the answer is no, the court stays out.

3. Locus Standi (Standing)

Only an aggrieved person can approach a court for judicial review. You cannot challenge a law just because you disagree with it philosophically. You must show that the law directly harms your rights or interests.

4. Exhaustion of Alternative Remedies

Courts generally refuse to hear a case if the petitioner has not first used other available remedies. If a law provides for an appeal to a tribunal or a departmental authority, you must go there first before knocking on the High Court's door under Article 226.

This prevents the courts from being flooded with cases that could be resolved elsewhere.

5. The Doctrine of Severability

If only a part of a law is unconstitutional, the court will strike down only that part — not the entire law — provided the remaining part can stand independently. The court cannot rewrite the law, but it can surgically remove the offending portion.

6. The Doctrine of Eclipse

A pre-constitutional law that violates fundamental rights is not dead; it is merely eclipsed. If the Constitution is later amended to remove the conflict, the law revives automatically. The court's review here is limited to determining whether the eclipse still exists.

7. Self-Imposed Restraint (Judicial Restraint) …