"Should A Judge Be “Literal” In His Interpretation Of The Constitution Without Going Into The Reasons Behind A Constitutional Provision? Answer In The Light Of The Indian Supreme Court’s Judgments

"Should A Judge Be “Literal” In His Interpretation Of The Constitution Without Going Into The Reasons Behind A Constitutional Provision? Answer In The Light Of The Indian Supreme Court’s Judgments On “Federalism” And “Emergency” Under The Indian Constitution

Dhruv Singh, Jindal Global Law School

Hemanth Karthik Royal, Jindal Global Law School

ABSTRACT

In this paper we shall delve into the question of whether the interpretation of laws in India adopted by the Judiciary should be purely textual in nature, or whether there are different other methods that may and are employed. For this purpose, we shall go through a number of cases that came out during and after the declaration of state of emergency in India by the then- Prime Minister Later Mrs Indira Gandhi. We shall look at the various methods of interpretation of the statutes that were adopted by the courts and how they shaped the history of judiciary in India. We shall look at how the approach of the Judges changed with time, and examine the dissenting opinions in India based on the method of interpretation of statutes that was employed by the Judge. Lastly, based on the entire research and evaluation we shall also analyse whether literal and textual interpretation of the law, pushed by the positivist theory of jurisprudence is indeed the best possible method of interpretation for the delivery of justice in India.