Whether Private Entities Come Under The Purview Of Writ Jurisdiction Of High Courts?

Whether Private Entities Come Under The Purview Of Writ Jurisdiction Of High Courts? An Insight Into The Writ Jurisdiction Of High Courts Under Article 226

Mr. Saptarshi Chattopadhyay, Advocate, High Court at Calcutta.

ABSTRACT

Throughout the ages, the judicious ethos is under a continuous process of reformation and development. With the flow of time, a lot of changes emerged in the opinions, sentiments and perspectives, as a result, the judiciary had to be more sagacious and had to wear the unfading crown to be wiser and greater.

Precisely, the most befitting area within the Constitution of India, in order to safeguard the Fundamental Rights of the citizens by the Hon’ble High Courts of the country, is Article 226. Since its inception till the end of its first decade, the Constitution has acted like a conservative and orthodox guardian of the nations’ family. But, the judiciary is not an automated process. It basically runs by the persons, full of empathy and wisdom. As a result, precedents have started emerging to make it more operative, more functional and to make it wiser in order to ensure and uphold the Fundamental Rights of the citizens. This is perceptible, as how the concept of ‘forum conveniens’ has become something from nothing. Moreover, the scopes of a number of key expressions, such as ‘state’ and ‘other authorities’ under Article 12 and qualifying expressions, like ‘and’, ‘for any other purpose’, ‘authority’ under Article 226 have radically changed after the judiciary has started exploring to mould them into a preconceived notion for enabling them to act as an unit to operate against the violation of Fundamental Rights.

Consequently, the entire philosophy and parameters of Article 12 have evolved into this substantial formation and introduced a new horizon, where even a private entity can be a subject of writ jurisdiction of a High Court under some specified conditional avenues. Therefore, if this was a surmise before, it is the law now. Article 226 of the Constitution of India can be termed as one of the cardinal pillars that hold the entire Constitutional rights and thereby an aggrieved person can move the High Courts against any detriments caused by any state or by any other person or authority, which comes under the purview of Article 12 of the Constitution. In other terms, it is the sine qua non for every writ petition to succeed at the very outset. This may be a reason why the Ld. Advocates specifically maintain in their pleadings that the respondent authority or authorities is or are ‘State(s)’ within the meaning of Article 12 of the Constitution of India.