A ban too far by the supreme court

A ban too far by the supreme court

Banning construction is neither just nor logical.

Suppose an irate headmaster punishes two students for failing to do their homework by barring their neighbours from going to work, and, further, is in a position to enforce that ban as the neighbours in question happen to be school employees, how would people react? Unfortunately, that strong language cannot be employed when the headmaster’s arbitrariness is put to work in real life by the Supreme Court. The court’s order banning construction in states and Union territories that have failed to inform the Supreme Court of their respective policies to manage solid waste disposal is a lot worse than the headmaster’s cavalier order.

Solid waste management is arguably more important than homework. But homework is part of the school’s overall work, whereas policies, whether on solid waste management or urban regulation or anything else for that matter, fall within the ambit of responsibility of the executive, rather than of the judiciary. If the court had been dragged into the states’ failure to forge solid waste management policy and had ordered them to formulate such policies by a deadline, and the states failed to comply, the executive should be held responsible. If someone has to be penalised, it should be senior officials of the executive, not the tourism sector, the healthcare sector, the real estate sector or some other random target of arbitrary wrath. Curtailing construction will hit the overall economy, constrain housing supply, truncate the business of those who produce and supply building materials and make worse an already parlous job situation.

Article 142 of the Constitution gives the Supreme Court powers so wide-ranging as to make it, in theory, the supreme overlord of the polity, constrained only by Parliament’s power of impeachment of justices. Great power, we know, comes with great responsibility. Aborting growth at a time when it shows welcome signs of recovery from protracted torpor is not responsible behaviour. The Supreme Court itself must undo the damage its construction ban in several parts of India threatens. For the nation’s sake.