Supreme Court's Practice of Changing Its Own Decisions

 

Change in ideas, rules and policies with the change of country, time and circumstances is natural. But it doesn't mean that the Supreme Court should keep on changing its thoughts and decisions only in a matter of a few months or a few days. It appears that the SC has made a practice of changing its decisions. It should be called coincidence or misfortune! Such cases are going on increasing. Let's take a look at some of the major cases in which the apex court has changed its decisions.

1. All of you will remember that according to the directions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi had told the Supreme Court that any arrangement should be made for the speedy disposal of criminal cases of MPs and MLAs. The Supreme Court gave its verdict in this dispute on August 02, 2014 that MPs and MLAs are not specific, therefore no separate arrangement can be made in their cases. Unlike its previous decision, the Supreme Court asked the Central Government on November 01, 2017 to set up a separate court for speedy disposal of criminal cases of MPs and MLAs. If the highest court had given this decision in 2014, some sort of separate arrangement had been made till now for quick disposal of criminal cases of MPs and MLAs.
2. One such case pertains to national anthem. On October 23, 2017, the Supreme Court gave a hint to reconsider its decision of November 30, 2016 to play the national anthem in cinemas and asking people to stand to respect it, and directed the Central Government to decide on its own whether the national anthem in cinemas is mandatory or not.
3. The decision to ban the sale of firecrackers was also such a decision of the highest court. Restricting the sale of firecrackers in the Delhi Capital Region was already applicable from the previous Deepawali. This year, on 12 September 2017, on the petition of the makers of crackers, made changes in its decision and ordered to provide licenses under police surveillance and reduced the total number of licenses to half. After a few days of its order, the Supreme Court while hearing on another petition, changed its own decision again on October 9, 2017, and said that the sale of firecrackers in the National Capital Region will be prohibited till 01 November 2017.
4. The Supreme Court had ordered on October 24, 2017 to break the parking spaces near the Taj Mahal. But on October 27, the Supreme Court stayed its own order.
5. The Supreme Court had ordered the removal of liquor shops by 500 meters along the highways. Later, the Supreme Court gave an explanation like change after a very long time, saying that the highway under the jurisdiction of the municipal bodies does not fall under the purview of this order.
6. What kind of matters will the Supreme Court hear? In view of this, the Supreme Court has adopted the tradition of changing the basis of reasoning while contemplating this. The Supreme Court rejected the petition for the investigation of the murder of Kashmiri Pandits, saying that it is too late; However, the Supreme Court is hearing the petition against the investigation of Mahatma Gandhi's murder.

It is not fair that the highest court make changes in its decisions so fast. It is necessary to ensure that such conditions do not occur again in the future; Therefore, the Honorable Supreme Court should pay attention to it so that it does not make changes in its decisions so quickly.

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