Jaitley: Judiciary should not be influenced by events of day

New Delhi, October 27

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Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said the judiciary should have a long-term “judicial statesmanship” and not be influenced by the events of the day.

“As Parliament needs it, politicians need it, I think the judiciary also needs a long-term judicial statesmanship, not to be influenced by the events of the day,” he told a news channel. “Are you being influenced by the events of the day or are you looking at the long term?” he asked. He said there needs to be an institutional mechanism for the future and cited examples of the verdict on Section 66-A of the IT Act and then on the national anthem.

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Jaitley said the SC first struck down Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, but when someone wrote a blog or made a comment on judges, courts started discussing how to restrain social media.  Similarly, he said, on the national anthem, the courts have adopted “multiple approaches” by first allowing the Jehovah community not to sing it in the 1980s and then treating a letter by a former CJI as a petition and saying there should be part of fundamental duties that one must sing it. 

“There is no judicially determinable standard for deciding foreign policy issues,” he pointed out. — PTI