"Here is a case of a widow and daughter claiming compensation for the killing of the sole bread-winner by a State Transport bus; and the Haryana Government, instead of acting on social justice and generously settling the claim, fights like a cantankerous litigant even by avoiding adjudication through the device of asking for Court fee from the pathetic plaintiffs." Supreme Court of India State of Haryana vs Darshana Devi
"Criminal justice breaks down, at a point when expeditious trial is not attempted while the affected parties are languishing in jail. The Criminal Procedure Code in sections 167, 209 and 309 has emphasised the importance of expeditious disposal of cases including investigations and trials. It is unfortunate, indeed pathetic, that there should have been such considerable delay in investigations by the police in utter disregard of the fact that a citizen has been deprived of his freedom on the ground that he is accused of an offence. We do not approve of this course and breach of the rule of law and express our strong displeasure at this chaotic state of affairs verging on wholesale breach of human rights guaranteed under the Constitution especially under Article 21 as interpreted by this Court." Supreme Court of India Nimeon Sangma & Ors vs Home Secretary, Govt. Of Meghalaya & Ors; 1979 AIR 1518
"We affirm the proposition that for making the right or remedy claimed by the party just and meaningful as also legally and factually in accord with the current realities, the Court can, and in many cases must, take cautious cognisance of events and developments subsequent to the institution of the proceeding provided the rules of fairness to both sides are scrupulously obeyed.” The observations made, as quoted above, need not to be read as laying down a law that in any case subsequent event cannot be considered for moulding the relief in a Writ Petition under Article 226." Supreme Court of India Pasupuleti Venkateswarlu v. The Motor & General Traders, (1975) 1 SCC 770.
"The sorrows of Sobhraj cannot be appreciated nor his constitutional claims evaluated without a fuller account of the bar fetter chapter of his jail life. I hold, bar fetters are a barbarity generally and, like whipping, must vanish. Law is not abracadabra but at once pragmatic and astute and does not surrender its power before scary exaggerations of security. Reckless handcuffing and chaining in public degrades, puts to shame finer sensibilities and is a slur on our culture. When the decision to fetter is made, reasons shall be recorded. No fetters shall continue beyond day time as nocturnal fetters on the locked-in are ordinarily uncalled for, viewed from considerations of safety. The prolonged continuance of irons, as a punitive or preventive step, shall be subject to previous approval by an external examiner like a Chief Judicial Magistrate or Sessions Judge who shall briefly hear and record reasons. Sobhraj succeeds, in substance, with regard to his grievance of bar fetters. In the eventuality of display of violence or escape attempts or credible evidence bringing home such a potential adventure by him, he may be kept under restraint. Irons shall not be forced on him unless the situation is one of emergency, leaving no other option. Sobhraj has lost the battle in part but won the war in full." Supreme Court of India Charles Sobhraj v. Delhi Administration, (1980) 3 SCC 488
"… bogey of busybodies blackmailing adversaries through frivolous invocation of Article 136 is chimerical. ‘Access to Justice’ to every bona fide seeker is a democratic dimension of remedial jurisprudence even as public interest litigation, class action, pro bono proceedings, etc. We cannot dwell in the home of processual obsolescence when our Constitution highlights social justice as a goal." Supreme Court of India P.S.R. Sadhanantham v. Arunachalam, (1980) 3 SCC 141
"Contemporary profusion of prison torture reports makes it necessary to drive home the obvious, to shake prison top brass from the callous complacency of unaccountable autonomy within that walled-off world of human held incommunicado. Whenever fundamental rights are flouted or legislative protection ignored, to any prisoner’s prejudice, this Court’s writ will run, breaking through stone walls and iron bars, to right the wrong and restore the rule of law. Then the parrot-cry of discipline will not deter, of security will not scare, of discretion will not dissuade, the judicial process. For if courts ‘cave in’ when great rights are gouged within the sound-proof, sight-proof precincts of prison houses, where, often, dissenters and minorities are caged, Bastilles will be re-enacted. When law ends tyranny begins; and history whispers, iron has never been the answer to the rights of men. Therefore, we affirm that imprisonment does not spell farewell to fundamental rights although, by a realistic re-appraisal, courts will refuse to recognise the full panoply of Part III enjoyed by a free citizen." Supreme Court of India Charles Sobraj v. Superintendent, Central Jail
"We must always remember that processual law is not to be a tyrant but a servant, not an obstruction but an aid to justice. It has been wisely observed that procedural prescriptions are the handmaid and not the mistress, a lubricant, not a resistant in the administration of justice. Where the non- compliance, tho’ procedural, will thwart fair hearing or prejudice doing of justice to parties, the rule is mandatory. But, grammar apart, if the breach can be corrected without injury to a just disposal of the case, we should not enthrone a regulatory requirement into a dominant desideratum. After, all Courts are to do justice, not to wreck this end product on technicalities." Supreme Court of India State of Punjab And Another v. Shamlal Murari & Anr
"What are we about? A raging rain of writ petitions by hundreds of merchants of intoxicants hit by a recently amended rule declaring a break of two ‘dry’ days in every ‘wet’ week for licensed liquor shops and other institutions of inebriation in the private sector, puts in issue the constitutionality of section 59(f)(v) and Rule 37 of the Punjab Excise Act and Liquor Licence (Second Amendment) Rules, (hereinafter, for short, the Act and the Rules). The tragic irony of the legal plea is that Article 14 and 19 of the very Constitution, which, in Article 47, makes it a fundamental obligation of the State to bring about prohibition of intoxicating drinks, is pressed into service to thwart the State’s half-hearted prohibitionist gesture. Of course, it is on the cards that the end may be good but the means may be bad, constitutionally speaking. And there is a mystique about legalese beyond the layman’s ken!" Supreme Court of India PN Kaushal Etc v. Union of India