Public reason and constitutional adjudication in India

Abstract

Taking India as my vantage point, I analyse Professor Wojciech Sadurski’s latest book, Constitutional Public Reason. The book comes at an interesting time for India. Comparative constitutional law scholarship has shifted focus from the Indian Supreme Court’s Public Interest Litigation movement to take a closer look at the Court’s deferential approaches to adjudicating fundamental rights. Simultaneously, the question of which standard of review to apply continues to be a contentious issue in constitutional cases before the Supreme Court. Even though India gets limited coverage in Sadurki’s new book, the book can be helpful in critiquing the deferential jurisprudence of the Indian Supreme Court and in exploring possible solutions. This review demonstrates the applicability of Sadurski’s insights by focusing on two strands of the book’s core argument: motive-based judicial review and standards of scrutiny in the context of the right to equality.