Union of India v. Rajasthan High Court & Ors.
Background
After a newspaper report about a security lapse at Jaipur's Sanganer Airport (where a passenger carrying a revolver boarded a flight despite being briefly detained), the Rajasthan High Court took suo motu cognisance and registered a public interest petition. During the proceedings, the High Court went beyond the original security-lapse issue and directed the Union Government to add Chief Justices and judges of High Courts to the list of VIPs exempted from pre-embarkation security screening at airports, and also directed consideration of a "National Security Policy." The Union of India appealed this direction to the Supreme Court, and a related transfer petition concerning similar unrelated observations by the Allahabad High Court in a different, unrelated disciplinary matter was also before the Court.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held that the Rajasthan High Court's direction had strayed far beyond the scope of the original suo motu petition (which was about a specific security lapse, not about who should be exempted from screening), and that decisions on security exemptions involve policy and security assessments that are properly for the Executive, not the judiciary, to make. The Court emphasised that judicial review must stay confined to cases involving a genuine breach of law or the Constitution, and that courts risk their institutional authority when they venture into matters of policy that are outside their expertise. It therefore allowed the Union's appeal, set aside the Rajasthan High Court's judgment, and dismissed the underlying writ petition, with no order as to costs. On the connected transfer petition, the Court found the Allahabad High Court had similarly made unrelated observations in a separate disciplinary appeal, directed that a copy of this judgment be placed on that record without expressing any view on the merits of that separate appeal, and disposed of the transfer petition.
Lesson Learnt
Courts exercising judicial review (including public interest litigation) must stay tied to the actual issue before them; they should not use a case about one problem as a springboard to issue sweeping policy directions on an unrelated matter, especially one, like security-exemption lists, that depends on an executive risk assessment rather than a question of legal right.