Democratic Legitimacy of Constitutional Socio-economic Rights Adjudication in India

Adjudication of constitutional socio-economic rights by the courts is often regarded as judicial usurpation of the governance space and therefore levelled with the charge of democratic illegitimacy. However, the charge of judicial usurpation in relation to constitutional socio-economic rights adjudication in India would have been justified, had the courts completely closed the debate on the issue of the realisation of various socio-economic rights, but what is being called constitutional adjudication of socio-economic rights by the courts in India needs to be understood in its proper context. The courts rather than completely occupying the space for the debate in relation to various socio-economic rights are actually only providing an additional forum for such debate to take place. The fact that beyond the emphasis and articulation of the strong socio-economic rights of citizens there is very little empirical evidence of individual remedial form of socio-economic rights adjudication ensuring individual remedies, bears ample testimony to this fact that the charge of usurpation by the courts of governance space in relation to socio-economic rights is exaggerated