A. SUSEELAMMA Vs. DISTRICT EDUCATIONAL OFFICER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) It is yet another instance to illustrate the attitude of the officials who seem to strongly believe that the orders or judgments of this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India are non-implementable or non- executable unless there is an execution petition filed in the style of a contempt case by taking recourse to Article 215 of the Constitution of India as well as Section 12 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971. Sad state of affairs to witness. The callous and impervious, if not imperious, attitude of the officials to the solemn judicial directives of unquestionable efficacy does not augur well to a nation that has sworn allegiance to Rule of Law.

(2.) In his seminal book On the Rule of Law, History, Politics and Theory, the learned author Brian Z Tamanaha observes that the apparent unanimity in support of the rule of law is a feat unparalleled in history and that no other single political ideal has ever achieved global endorsement. Reminding us of the ideological abuse and general over-use of what has now become a contested concept of rule of law, albeit in some schools of jurisprudence, the learned author has stressed the aspect that the principle of sovereignty of laws has subordinated the principle of popular sovereignty.

(3.) Though we claim to have the advantage of accumulated wisdom, millennia ago, when ideologically man was said to be in a state of tabula rasa, Aristotle has observed that there is nothing which should be more jealously maintained than the spirit of obedience to laws. In fact, Cicero in his rhetorical manner has stated: A Magistrate is speaking law; law, a silent Magistrate. All this wisdom was during ancient times, a period intellectually penumbral. Even to this day, it appears that we have not imbued, at least in some quarters, with the principle that law shall prevail and that law alone shall prevail, thereby subordinating everything else to the course of justice.