India is moving towards a form of elected autocracy’, says A.P. Shah
Judiciary appears once again to be failing us, says Justice Shah
With Parliament becoming a “ghost town” due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the judiciary having ‘abdicated’ its
role, accountability mechanisms have become diluted and the centr
al executive has become all-powerful and given free rein to do whatever it pleases”, former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court A.P. Shah said in a hard-hitting speech on Sunday.
He was speaking at the inaugural session of the Janta Parliament webinar being organised jointly by hundreds of civil society groups this week.Justice Shah said the budget session had been adjourned sine die on March 23, despite the fact that Parliament had previously continued to function through other times of crisis, including the wars of 1962 and 1971, and met the very next day after its own building faced a terror attack in 2001. Parliaments of other countries had also continued to function through hybrid or completely virtual sessions through the pandemic, enabling remote voting to ensure that legislative business could continue.
