There has been overall decline in values of all institutions, including the judiciary, the Supreme Court (SC) said on Tuesday. It hastened to add that “perhaps the worst has come from here [SC]”.
While hearing a lawsuit accusing the Madhya Pradesh government of misusing its discretionary powers in allotting institutional land, Supreme Court regretted that the declining trend had begun in the “highest temple’’ of judiciary in the 1970s.
It also concurred with senior advocate Ravi Shankar Prasad, a BJP MP, that the Supreme Court “of today could not be compared with that of the 1950s’’.
“Yes, the worst has come from here. It started in the ’70s. In 1976 and then again in 1986, when the court allowed discretionary allotments to the president, prime minister, ministers and even to judges,” the bench said.
“And we must accept this,” it added.
The apex court had earlier too regretted that it was due to its 1976 judgment that the citizens’ fundamental right to liberty had been suspended. The bench conceded a decline in moral values of all pillars of democracy.
Prasad joined the concern saying, “There is a decline even of this institution [judiciary]. We must, however, trust the inner strength of democracy.”
