The Moral Career of Democratic Politics

It has always been possible to show the seamier side of the law which, now and then, tends to depart from the principle of the rule of law. Consequently, it finds itself walking into a moral incongruence, where the law differs from the spirit of the constitutionally laid-down and hence linear procedures and non-linear outcomes, like verdicts that are given outside the constitutional procedures. However, underpinning the violation of such procedures is the ethics of being aware of these lapses. The Supreme Court did show this awareness, which is manifested in the strictures that it has passed recently. However, the Court’s critical observation and its verdict lay out the importance of the governor’s moral commitment to follow a constitutionally laid-down process.

The Court said, quite unequivocally, that the governor’s conduct in the Maharashtra legislative assembly was wrong, however, the result that it yielded in terms of the morally tutored resignation of the chief minister of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government was kind of a fait accompli. The strictures, rather than the actual judgment, seem to have a long-term significance for fostering the link between constitutional morality and the law. Using the critical observation of the Court, it is underlined that the judgment of voting ought to be in favour of a party that does not have the ambition to be wicked in its political practice.