Cautioning the courts against what could be seen as judicial “overreach,” former Chief Justice of India Justice J S Verma — considered the face of judicial activism — has obliquely raised questions over the recent stay order of the Supreme Court on the law enabling 27% OBC quotas.

“I don’t want to comment on a matter still under consideration,” he told The Indian Express when asked for his reaction to the stay order. “All I can say is that judicial discipline requires consistency and there should be no scope for any departure or conflict with any settled procedures of law.”

This echoes the criticism from some quarters in the government that a two-judge bench, staying the OBC quotas, had over-turned what was the basis of a judgment by a nine-judge bench (in the Indira Sawhney case, 1992).

Justice Verma’s remarks are in tune with the key message of an unusually candid lecture he delivered on March 24 at the Rani Durgawati Vishwavidyalaya (formerly the University of Jabalpur) in which he urged courts to discriminate between what is “legitimate” and what is “illegitimate” judicial intervention. His audience included the Chief Justice and all judges of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, a court where he served for over 12 years. Justice Verma, critiqued several aspects of the “claim of supremacy by any of the three organs” as being “misplaced in the constitutional scheme.” And made a clear distinction between judicial intervention and judicial overreach, Justice Verma spoke of the “soul” of judicial activism, cautioning courts at all times not to cross the line.

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