Opinion - Letters to the Editor   

Who is supreme?

The basic structure doctrine has led to the concentration of powers in one institution — the judiciary ("The Constitution: who, if anybody, is supreme?" Jan. 31). Can we assume that the judges cannot go wrong? Or that it is only the judges who can best determine the interest of the people? If the answer is yes, then it is like accepting the proposition that the Constitution is what the judges say it is. The problem with the basic structure doctrine is the inability of the court to take a clear stand on the nature and scope of un-amendable basic features of the Constitution.

Pawan Kumar,
New Delhi

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The Constitution has made both the legislature and the judiciary supreme in their own spheres. But the legislature has failed the people time and again by its ineptitude and rampant corruption. This is not to suggest that the judiciary is free from any malaise. It has been forced to `encroach' upon the rights of other organs only because they have failed to discharge their constitutional obligations.

Abhishek Mishra,
New Delhi

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N.V. Gadgil said, while supporting the resolution on the preamble, "it is a sort of spiritual preamble which will pervade every section, every clause and every schedule ... it is a sort of a dynamic, a driving power which will be available to those who will be charged with framing of the Constitution in detail" (Constituent Assembly Debates, Vol. II). There should be no doubt regarding the supremacy of the legislature because it is formed by the directly elected representatives of the people of India, in whose name the Constitution stands.

A.R. Vattacary,
Mahe

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The claims and counter claims of the three organs of one's supremacy over the other has reduced the written Constitution to a mere document.

B. Seetharam,
Hanamkonda, A.P.

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This refers to the article "Institutional excesses, elite deadlock" (Feb. 1). Failure of unarguably the most important of the institutions, the executive, on all fronts (and not just from the point of view of the middle class) calls for responses either from the people or other institutional guardians. Changing circumstances do call for changing responses and for trust in other institutional authorities.

B. Chandra Kiran,
New York

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