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2014 (11) TMI 1080 - SC - Indian LawsDirection carrying of census in a particular manner - Power of judicial review - Held that:- It is not within the domain of the courts to embark upon an enquiry as to whether a particular public policy is wise and acceptable or whether a better policy could be evolved. The court can only interfere if Power of judicial review - Held that:- The policy framed is absolutely capricious or not informed by reasons or totally arbitrary and founded ipse dixit offending the basic requirement of Article 14 of the Constitution. In certain matters, as often said, there can be opinions and opinions but the Court is not expected to sit as an appellate authority on an opinion. As has been stated earlier, the Central Government had issued a Notification prescribing the series of informations to be collected during the census. It covers many areas. It includes information relating to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and does not refer to any other caste. In such a situation, it is extremely difficult to visualize that the High Court, on the first occasion, without having a lis before it in that regard, could even have thought of issuing a command to the Census Department to take all such measures towards conducting the caste-wise census in the country so that the social justice in its true sense, which is the need of the hour, could be achieved. This, irrefragably, is against the power conferred on the court. The High Court had not only travelled beyond the lis in the first round of litigation, but had really yielded to some kind of emotional perspective, possibly paving the adventurous path to innovate. It is legally impermissible. On the second occasion, where the controversy squarely arose, the High Court did not confine to the restrictions put on the jurisdiction and further without any kind of deliberation, repeated the earlier direction. The order is exceptionally cryptical. That apart, it is legally wholly unsustainable. The High Court, to say the least, had no justification to pave such a path and we have no hesitation in treating the said path as a colossal transgression of power of judicial review, and that makes the order sensitively susceptible.
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