NAND KISHORE SINGH Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE State of Bihar today is without grass -root democracy. There is no local self government. This State can claim to be the cradle of civilisation in ancient India, and the land of rulers and kingdoms which boasted of the best in successful government. National leaders of stature from this State debated at the Constituent Assembly to frame the Constitution. But, today no one can boast that the pattern of democracy under the Constitution exists. It does not.

(2.) THIS case is about return to local self government. It was tost many years ago. A generation of experience in it has been wiped out. This is a bad foundation for the future of a republic.

(3.) MR . Surendra Nath Banerjee continued: "According to the same authority, the village is the fundamental, the indestructible unit of the Indian Social system, which has survived the overthrow of dynasties and the fall of empires. Sir, out (our?) village organisations carry the mind back to the dawn of human civilisation and the early beginning of local self -government. They are dead now, but the instinct is there, deep down in the national consciousness, and under the fostering care of a wise and beneficent government, such as we now have it may be revivified into a living flame. Our system of local self -government has been built up from the top. That, perhaps, was inevitable under the circumstances. But the time has now come when it should be strengthened from below and the foundations laid well and deep....."