Supreme Court judge Justice U.U. Lalit inaugurated a Certificate course by Indian Law Institute, New Delhi in association with the Commonwealth Legal Education Association (CLEA) and technical support from Menon Institute of Legal Advocate and former member of the Law Commission for a Course on Comparative Constitutional and Public Law.
Addressing the students, Justice Lalit said, “Geographical barriers or the national frontiers in today’s world are shrinking.” He further said international declarations like the Human Rights under the Universal Declaration have made their way in the municipal laws of various countries that have found the format suiting them.
Justice Lalit spoke about many times when the reference to a judgment has been made from landmark cases from other courts, which is a give and take.
The cases that he mentioned were:
In S.R. Bommai (1994 AIR 1918), the dissolution of assembly was considered and in case the notification dissolving the assembly is found to be incorrect, what shall be the sequitur of that? The court relied on a Pakistan judgment that was delivered in a Nawaz Sharif case while dealing with it. In the Nawaz Sharif case, in turn, the Pakistan Supreme Court relied on a host of Indian decisions.
In Nilabati Behera, (1993 AIR 1960) J. Anand’s judgment was cited with approval in the New Zealand Supreme Court and then that very judgment was quoted extensively in one of the orders passed in DK Basu (AIR 1997 SC 610) by J. Anand himself.
In the Triple Talaq judgment (2017 9 SCC 1), Chief Justice Khehar, in his minority dissent, copiously extracted the statutory provisions from various Islamic republics to see whether such an oral declaration is followed in other countries.
The Supreme Court judge spoke of various jurisdictions and said we need to look into details with an insight for jurisdictions and comparable laws from other countries as well.
Justice Lalit said the course would enrich students by developing their capacity to take challenges in life by helping them in doing better mental framework. He wished the students all the best for future endeavours.