Which one of the following subjects fall within the jurisdiction of both High Court and Supreme Court?

Question

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Correct — C, Protection of fundamental rights. This is the one subject in the option set that the Constitution hands to both courts in nearly identical words, and that textual duplication is the proof. Article 32(1) guarantees the right to move the Supreme Court by appropriate proceedings for the enforcement of the rights conferred by Part III, and Article 32(2) gives the Supreme Court power to issue directions, orders or writs, including writs in the nature of habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibition, quo warranto and certiorari, 'for the enforcement of any of the rights conferred by this Part'. Article 226(1) then opens with the words 'Notwithstanding anything in article 32' and gives every High Court, throughout the territories over which it has jurisdiction, power to issue to any person or authority — including in appropriate cases any Government — the same five writs, 'for the enforcement of any of the rights conferred by Part III and for any other purpose'. Same remedy, same five writs, same purpose clause, two different courts. The Commission's own disposal of objections stated it in a single line: fundamental rights will be protected by both courts. The two remedies are not identical twins, and the differences are themselves examinable. Article 226 is wider in subject matter, because those closing words 'and for any other purpose' let a High Court enforce ordinary legal and constitutional rights and not only Part III rights, whereas Article 32 is confined to fundamental rights. Article 32 is stronger in status, because it sits inside Part III and is therefore itself a fundamental right — Dr B. R. Ambedkar called it the very soul of the Constitution and the very heart of it — while Article 226 is a constitutional power vested in the High Court rather than a right vested in the citizen, and relief under it is discretionary. Article 32 is wider in reach, since the Supreme Court's writ runs throughout India, while a High Court's runs within its own territories, extended by Article 226(2) to authorities outside them only where the cause of action arises wholly or in part inside. And in L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India (1997) the Supreme Court held that the power of judicial review vested in the High Courts under Articles 226 and 227 and in the Supreme Court under Article 32 is an integral and essential feature of the Constitution, forming part of its basic structure — a holding that puts both halves of this shared jurisdiction beyond the reach of even a constitutional amendment.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Killed by an express exclusivity clause, not by inference. Article 131 says the Supreme Court shall, 'to the exclusion of any other court', have original jurisdiction in any dispute between the Government of India and one or more States, and in any dispute between the Union and one or more States on one side and other States on the other. No High Court can touch it. This is the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction in the strict sense — the case begins and ends there, with no appeal and no lower court below it.  (b) The same clause, the third limb. Article 131(c) covers disputes between two or more States, again 'to the exclusion of any other court', and again only where the dispute involves a question of law or fact on which the existence or extent of a legal right depends. There is a further carve-out worth knowing: under Article 262(2) Parliament may bar every court — the Supreme Court included — from an inter-State river water dispute, and it did so through the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956, which is why such disputes go to tribunals.  (d) The one option that needs an honest answer rather than a dismissal. Judicial review of constitutional violations is in fact exercised by High Courts too — Article 226's 'and for any other purpose', read with Article 13, lets a High Court strike down a law that offends the Constitution. But no provision confers on either court a head of jurisdiction called 'protection from the violation of the Constitution'; the phrase describes a function, not a jurisdiction, and where the paper treats it as distinctively the Supreme Court's it is on solid ground, because Article 141 makes only the Supreme Court's declared law binding on all courts within India, while a High Court's ruling binds only within its own territory. Option (c) is the better answer because it is the only subject the Constitution itself names for both courts, and the key marks (c).

Concept: Indian courts hold three kinds of jurisdiction, and almost every question in this family is really asking you to tell them apart. Original jurisdiction means a case starts in that court. The Supreme Court's original jurisdiction has two very different strands: the federal strand under Article 131, which is exclusive to it and covers Union-State and inter-State legal disputes, and the writ strand under Article 32, which it shares with the High Courts. Appellate jurisdiction means a case arrives on appeal — Articles 132, 133 and 134 for constitutional, civil and criminal appeals from a High Court, plus the discretionary special leave to appeal under Article 136, which reaches any judgment of any court or tribunal in India except a court martial. Advisory jurisdiction, under Article 143, belongs to the Supreme Court alone: the President may refer a question of law or fact of public importance for its opinion, and the Court's opinion is not binding. The High Courts have their own supervisory power under Article 227, superintendence over all courts and tribunals within their territories, which the Supreme Court does not exercise over High Courts. Set against that map, the writ jurisdiction is the unusual one, because it is the single place where the Constitution deliberately duplicates a remedy — a citizen whose fundamental right is violated may go to the High Court under Article 226 or straight to the Supreme Court under Article 32, and in practice the Supreme Court often asks a petitioner to exhaust the High Court remedy first even though Article 32 imposes no such requirement. That duplication is not accidental. It puts a constitutional remedy within the same State as the citizen, which is exactly the design point BPSC is testing. For Bihar, that court is the Patna High Court, established in 1916 and one of the oldest in India, whose Article 226 jurisdiction covered Bihar and Jharkhand together until the Jharkhand High Court was created on the State's bifurcation in 2000.

State PCS 2025 Q70 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

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