बेबाक · Editorial
When The Bench Must Summon The State: A Republic That Should Answer First
From war dead to stray-animal accidents, RTI to family law, the courts are again the forum where the citizen compels the state to answer — a duty the executive should not need reminding of.
The Common Thread
Read together, this week's dockets tell one story: the citizen knocking, and the state made to answer. The Supreme Court sought the Centre's response on a plea challenging the constitutional validity of Muslim polygamy, which seeks uniform application of bigamy laws, compulsory marriage registration and legislative measures. It ordered the Ministry to facilitate DNA testing of Indians killed in the Russia-Ukraine war and ensure families receive legal aid for compensation claims. It directed the Centre and the states to develop a mechanism for compensation in accidents caused by stray animals on roads. Different subjects, one pattern — the judiciary converting unanswered claims into obligation, one notice or direction at a time.
The Core Tension
The tension is not between court and government but between two goods a republic must hold together: the executive's mandate to govern, and the citizen's right to be heard when governance fails. When the Central Information Commission declared the National Stock Exchange a public authority under the RTI Act, the Supreme Court stayed that ruling and issued notice on NSE's plea challenging the Delhi High Court judgment. When activist Umar Khalid sought fresh bail under the UAPA in the case linked to the alleged larger conspiracy behind the 2020 northeast Delhi riots, the Delhi High Court sought the Delhi Police's response. Each asks one question: how much of public power, liberty or public-facing authority may operate without timely scrutiny.
Steel-Manning Both Sides
The state's case deserves its strongest form. The Centre says the Sri Kartarpur Sahib Corridor must remain suspended because the extant security scenario compels it, even as Sikh religious groups and organisations seek early reopening — a genuine weighing of faith against safety. In the NSE case, the court has stayed the public-authority ruling while it hears the exchange's challenge. Public order, security, market process and orderly adjudication are duties, not alibis. But the citizen's case is equally grave: families of Indians killed abroad needed the court to press for identification and legal aid; road users face accidents caused by stray animals without a settled compensation mechanism; transparency over institutions with public significance remains contested. When redress arrives only after a bench intervenes, rights are not secured — they are rationed by litigation.
The Evidence
The specifics indict complacency more than malice. It took a Supreme Court direction to facilitate identification of Indians who died in a foreign war and to route their families toward legal aid. It took the court to notice accidents caused by stray animals on roads and direct the Centre and states to develop a compensation mechanism. In the polygamy challenge, the petition seeks uniform application of bigamy laws, compulsory marriage registration and legislative measures. And in Meghalaya, the political spectrum united in rare consensus against the proposed FCRA Amendment Bill 2026, warning that provisions allowing the 'provisional seizure' of assets need parliamentary scrutiny.
The Verdict
The verdict is reform, not rebuke. An active judiciary is a symptom, not the disease; every matter here reached a bench because an office of state left a gap or a contested question unresolved. The courts are performing their constitutional function — issuing notice, seeking responses, ordering mechanisms. Yet a healthy republic should not need the apex court to press for identification of its war dead, frame compensation for stray-animal accidents, or settle whether a market institution answers to the RTI Act. The measure of governance is not how vigorously courts intervene, but how seldom they must. On that measure, the executive is too often being carried by the judiciary in matters it should have settled itself, on time.
The Way Forward
Three concrete steps follow. First, the Union government should pre-empt litigation by publishing, within a fixed timeline, the stray-animal compensation mechanism the Supreme Court has ordered, and standing protocols for overseas citizen crises, rather than awaiting further directions. Second, contested laws — the FCRA Amendment Bill 2026 among them — belong before a parliamentary panel, as Meghalaya's leaders have urged, so scrutiny precedes seizure powers. Third, Parliament and regulators should define by statute which market and quasi-public bodies answer to the RTI Act, ending case-by-case ambiguity. Answer the citizen before the court compels it: that is the reform the republic needs.
A republic is measured not by how often its courts must summon the state, but by how rarely they should have to.
The state's duty to answer citizens' queries and provide timely scrutiny of public power and authority is at stake, as per Articles 19(1)(a), 32 and the RTI Act, 2005, and the separation of powers enshrined in Article 50.
Timely State Response Act
The Mudda proposes the 'Timely State Response Act', which mandates the Centre and states to respond to all RTI queries and court notices within a fixed timeframe of 30 days, with a provision for automatic stay of any executive action if the deadline is not met, to ensure timely scrutiny of public power and authority and uphold the citizen's right to be heard.
Your Constitutional Rights
What the Constitution guarantees in this storyAny citizen may ask any public authority for information and must normally receive it within 30 days. It flows from the right to know under Article 19(1)(a).
StatutoryEvery citizen has the right to freedom of speech and expression — including a free press and the right to know — subject only to the reasonable restrictions in Article 19(2).
Fundamental RightThe State shall take steps to separate the judiciary from the executive in the public services.
Directive PrincipleThe right to move the Supreme Court directly to enforce fundamental rights — called by Dr Ambedkar "the heart and soul of the Constitution." The courts can issue writs such as habeas corpus and mandamus.
Fundamental RightWhat this editorial rests on
Drawn from our live multi-newsroom feed — read the reporting at source.
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An editorial is the considered opinion of The Mudda desk, argued from the sourced reporting above and written under our published persona, बेबाक. We name institutions and actors; we do not endorse or attack any political party. "The Mudda's Ask" is a citizen's good-faith policy proposal, grounded in the Constitution — not the platform of any party. Translations are faithful — no fact is added in any language. If we are wrong, we will say so. How we work →