Which article empowers the High Courts to issue directions for the enforcement of Fundamental Rights ?

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Correct — option (1), Article 226. This is the article that gives every High Court power to issue, throughout the territories in relation to which it exercises jurisdiction, 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 Part III and for any other purpose. Two features of the wording matter and both are examinable. The first is the phrase 'and for any other purpose': the High Court's writ jurisdiction is wider than the Supreme Court's under Article 32, which is confined to the enforcement of fundamental rights, so a High Court may issue a writ where an ordinary legal right has been infringed, not only a fundamental one. The second is the territorial reach. Under Article 226(1) the power runs within the High Court's own territories, and Article 226(2), inserted by the Fifteenth Amendment in 1963, extends it to a government or authority or person outside those territories if the cause of action arises wholly or in part within them. The counterpart provision to remember alongside it is Article 32, under which the Supreme Court exercises the same writ power for fundamental rights and which is itself a fundamental right — the provision Dr Ambedkar called the heart and soul of the Constitution. Article 226 is not a fundamental right, but the Supreme Court held in L. Chandra Kumar (1997) that the writ jurisdiction of the High Courts under Article 226 forms part of the basic structure and cannot be taken away.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) Article 135 is a transitional provision about the Supreme Court, not about the High Courts at all. It says that the jurisdiction and powers exercisable immediately before the commencement of the Constitution by the Federal Court, under any existing law and in matters to which Articles 133 and 134 do not apply, shall be exercisable by the Supreme Court. It is a continuity clause bridging the Federal Court set up under the Government of India Act, 1935 and the Supreme Court that replaced it in 1950, and it has nothing to do with the enforcement of fundamental rights.  (c) Article 143 is the advisory jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. It allows the President, where a question of law or fact of public importance has arisen or is likely to arise, to refer it to the Supreme Court for its opinion, and the Court may report its opinion to the President; the opinion is advisory and not binding, and the Court may decline to answer a reference under clause (1). Famous references such as the Kerala Education Bill (1958), the Berubari Union case (1960) and the Special Court Reference have come by this route. It confers no power to issue writs and belongs to the Supreme Court, not the High Courts.  (d) Article 133 governs appeals to the Supreme Court from a High Court in civil proceedings, allowed where the High Court certifies that the case involves a substantial question of law of general importance which in its opinion needs to be decided by the Supreme Court. It is appellate machinery running upward from the High Courts, whereas the question asks about the original power of the High Courts themselves. Its criminal counterpart is Article 134 and the special leave provision is Article 136 — a cluster worth keeping distinct from the writ articles, 32 and 226.

Concept: The writ jurisdiction of the Indian courts is split between two articles and the differences between them are the substance of most questions on the subject. Article 32 gives the Supreme Court power to issue directions, orders or writs for the enforcement of fundamental rights and makes the right to move the Court for that purpose a fundamental right in itself; it can be suspended only as the Constitution allows, which is the significance of Article 359. Article 226 gives the same writ power to the High Courts, over a wider field, because it extends to the enforcement of fundamental rights 'and for any other purpose' — that is, to legal rights generally. The Supreme Court's power under Article 32 runs across the whole country while a High Court's runs within its own territories, subject to the cause-of-action extension in Article 226(2). Five writs are named in both articles: habeas corpus, to produce a detained person before the court; mandamus, to command a public authority to do its duty; prohibition, to stop a subordinate court or tribunal exceeding its jurisdiction; certiorari, to quash an order already passed by one; and quo warranto, to question a person's title to a public office. In practice the High Courts are the workhorses of writ jurisdiction, and Article 226 is the article under which most constitutional litigation in India begins.

State PCS 2024 Q85 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q85 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer