1986 (11) TMI 392

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....ut in paragraph 2 where it has been stated that a' Bench of this Court sat late at night on 5th September 1986 for considering the bail application of Shri Lalit Mohan Thapar and Shri Shyam Sunder Lal and that the same anxiety which was shown by this Court in taking up the bail application of these two gentlemen must "permeate the attitude and inclination of this Hon'ble Court in all matters where questions relating to the liberty of citizens, high or low, arise" and that the bail applications of "small men" must receive the same importance as the bail applications of "big industrialists." The petitioner, therefore, prays that special leave petitions against orders refusing bail or anticipatory bail sho....

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....rded it as its duty to come to the rescue of these deprived and vulnerable sections of Indian humanity in order to help them realise their economic and social entitlements and to bring to an end their oppression and exploitation. The strategy of public interest litigation has been evolved by this Court with a view to bringing justice within the easy reach of the poor and the disadvantaged sections of the community. This Court has always shown the greatest concern and anxiety for the welfare of the large masses of people in the country who are living a life of want and destitution, misery and suffering and has become a symbol of the hopes and aspirations of millions of people in the country. It is, therefore, not correct to say that this Cou....

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.... could interfere whenever it found that law was not correctly enunciated by the lower courts or tribunals and it was necessary to pronounce the correct law on the subject. This extraordinary jurisdiction could also be availed by the apex court for the purpose of. correcting grave miscarriage of justice, but such cases would be exceptional by their very nature. It is not every case where the apex court finds that some injustice has been done that it would grant special leave and interfere. That would be converting the apex court into a regular court of appeal and moreover, by so doing, the apex court would soon be reduced to a position where it will find itself unable to remedy any injustice at all, on account of the tremendous backlog of ca....

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....has been done, how can we shut our eyes to it. But the answer to this anguished query is that the Judges of the apex court may not shut their eyes to injustice but they must equally not keep their eyes too wide open, otherwise the apex court would not be able to perform the high and noble role which it was intended to perform according to the faith of the Constitution makers. It is for this reason that the apex court has evolved, as a matter of self-discipline, certain norms to guide it in the exercise of its discretion in cases where special leave petitions are filed against orders granting or refusing bail or anticipatory bail. These norms have to be articulated in order that the people may know as to what is the judicial policy of the ap....