Supreme Court has set up a ‘Social Justice Bench‘ to deliver speedy access to constitutional rights and deal exclusively with social matters, including the right to food and medical assistance. ‘Social Justice Bench‘ would exclusively hear cases concerning social issues particularly those related to women, children and underprivileged saying that specialized approach is needed for dealing with these matters.
It was observed that, there are several cases relating to the domain of social justice are pending for several years and Chief Justice of India is of the view that these cases shall be given a specialized approach for their early disposal so that the masses will realize the fruits of the rights provided to them by the constitutional text.
In this perspective the Supreme Court of India has ordered to constitute of special bench titled as ‘Social Justice Bench‘ to deal specially with the matters relating to society and its members, to secure social justice, which is one of the ideals of the Indian Constitution.
Under the domain of “social justice”, several cases highlighting social issues are included. To mention summarily about the release of surplus food grains lying in stocks for the use of people living in the drought-affected areas to frame a fresh scheme for public distribution of food grains, to take steps to prevent untimely death of women and children for want of nutritious food, providing hygienic meal besides issues relating to children to provide night shelter to destitute and homeless, to provide medical facilities to all the citizens irrespective of their economic condition, to provide hygienic drinking water, to provide safety and secure living condition for the fair gender who are forced into prostitution etc. These are some of the areas where the Constitution mechanism has to play a proactive role in order to meet the goals of the Constitution.
Supreme Court while setting up this bench, emphasize the need of judiciary to be proactive to ensure early disposal of such cases and to bring fruits of the rights provided under the Constitution to people. According to Supreme Court, ‘Social Justice Bench‘ will be assembling every Friday at 2:00 PM from December 12, 2014.