Supreme Court: In an appeal filed by the Union Government against a judgment of the Rajasthan High Court which issued a direction to the Union Government and to its Secretaries in the Ministries of Civil Aviation and Home Affairs “to include the Chief Justices and the Judges of the High Court in the list of persons exempted from pre-embarkation security checks” at airports, the Full Bench of T.S. Thakur, CJ and D.Y. Chandrachud and L. Nageswara Rao, JJ. ruled that the High Courts in their power of judicial review are not entitled to suggest policies which they consider fit as it falls beyond the legitimate domain of judicial review.
This ruling of the Court came in light of a judgment of the Rajasthan High Court, wherein the High Court had taken sou moto cognizance of a breach of security matter at the Sanganer Airport, Jodhpur and conversely issued a direction of a nature that encroached upon the domain of the executive and lay outside the power of judicial review.
The Court held that preserving the sanctity of judicial power is necessary and for this, the power of judicial review is confined to cases where there is a breach of law or of the Constitution. It said that the judgment of the Rajasthan High Court is an example of a matter where the Court should not have entered. While combining a Transfer Petition T.P.(C) No. 75 of 2012 against an order passed by the Allahabad HC with this appeal, this Court categorically noted that that the directions issued by the HC must not be unrelated to the basis on which jurisdiction under Aticle 226 is invoked. [Union of India v. Rajasthan High Court, 2016 SCC OnLine SC 1468, decided on 14.12.2016]
