JUDGMENT

A.M. Ahmadi, CJI. - Democracy in modern India is on the threshold of completing fifty years of existence. Milestones such as this have traditionally been occasions to embark upon wide-ranging assessments to survey the achievements and failures, highpoints and pitfalls, as well as the future prospects of the institution concerned. In our times, it is widely acknowledge that democracy in India has not risen upto the high expectations which heralded its conception. Many reasons have been advanced to explain the causes for the malaise which seems to have stricken Indian democracy in particular, and Indian society in general. The matter which we are presently concerned with professions to identify one of the primary causes for the present state of affairs.

2. The genesis of the controversy relates to the constitution of a Committee by the Union of India on July 9, 1993, by its order No. S/7937/SS(ISP)/93. An examination of the brief order discloses that the Committee was to be chaired by the Home Secretary and was to comprise the Secretary (Revenue), the Director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), the Director of the Central Bureau of Intelligence (CBI), and the Joint Secretary (PP