It's not an easy task to persuade the Supreme Court to accept a plea for the review of a judgment that a petitioner feels has not done justice to him on facts and law. There must be cogent reasons for venturing into a difficult arena of review.
Moreover, such an application can only be filed against a final judgment and not against an interim order passed by the court in a pending matter like social scientist Nandini Sundar’s challenge to the recruitment of special police officers (SPOs) and using these miserly paid ‘force multipliers’ to combat the deadly acts of terror and violence in the Maoist-affected Chhattisgarh.
Since the issues raised in the Sundar's lawsuit pivoted around constitutionality of the state's actions and misuse of the human force, a bench of Justice B Sudershan Reddy (since retired) and Justice Surinder Singh Nijjar treated them of utmost importance and passed the detailed directions in one of the most wonderfully worded dictations.
Within days of that order, simmering discontent prevailed among the ruling political class. This order and another set of directions passed by the same bench three days later on the black money scam investigation set up, brought together the rival parties crying judicial overreach.
However, the Home ministry has refrained from using the term ‘overreach’ in its application that seeks modification of the paragraphs of the order that largely deal with the ‘concept of Maoists/naxalites violence’ in Chhattisgarh and elsewhere.
