It is yet another instance to illustrate the attitude of the officials who seem to strongly believe that the orders or judgments of this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India are non-implementable or non-executable unless there is an execution petition filed in the style of a contempt case by taking recourse to Article 215 of the Constitution of India as well as Section 12 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971. Sad state of affairs to witness. The callous and impervious, if not imperious, attitude of the officials to the solemn judicial directives of unquestionable efficacy does not augur well to a nation that has sworn allegiance to Rule of Law.

2. In his seminal book 'On the Rule of Law, History, Politics and Theory’, the learned author Brian Z Tamanaha observes that the apparent unanimity in support of the rule of law is a feat unparalleled in history and that no other single political ideal has ever achieved global endorsement. Reminding us of the ideological abuse and general over-use of what has now become a contested concept of rule of law, albeit in some schools of jurisprudence, the learned author has stressed the aspect that the principle of ‘sovereignty of laws’ has subordinated the principle of ‘popular sovereignty’.

3. Though we claim to have the advantage of accumulated wisdom, millennia ago, when ideologically man was said to be in a state of tabula rasa, Aristotle has observed that there is nothing which should be more jealously maintained than the spirit of obedience to laws. In fact, Cicero in his rhetorical manner has stated: A Magistrate is speaking law; law, a silent Magistrate. All this wisdom was during ancient times, a period intellectually penumbral. Even to this day, it appears that we have not imbued, at least in some quarters, with the principle that law shall prevail and that law alone shall prevail, thereby subordinating everything else to the course of justice.

4. It has become a rule, rather than an exception, that a litigant, having obtained an order from a Constitutional Court, is not sure of the order bearing the fruit of relief in actual terms. Every litigant is compelled, under varied circumstances, to knock the doors of the Court repeatedly with the same cause. The insouciant attitude of certain officials has reduced the solemn constitutional power of contempt, as enshrined under Article 215 of the Constitution of India, to that of an execution proceeding under Order 21 of Code of Civil Procedure. Thus, in every second instance of remedial orders given by the High Court, to have the order enforced, the petitioner is required to file a contempt case.

5. The preamble to the Constitution has the rubric of Republic, among other things. A Republic is essentially a democratic polity of Government governed by Rule of Law, lest mere democracy should descend into a simple state of rule by majority. In other words, in a system of value norms and respect, we may have to remember the caution of George Savile, as cited in Eugene C. Gerhart's 'Quote It', that 'no respect is lasting, but that which is produced by our being in some degree useful to those that pay it. That caution finds reflected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948: "It is essential if man is not to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the Rule of Law."

6. On appreciation of the facts of the present case, this Court has failed to come to any other conclusion than to the above. When a few persons have come together and filed a writ petition, even after getting an order collectively, only those persons who have filed contempt cases alone have been granted the relief, thus denying the benefit to the rest of the people under the same order.

7. Long ago, the husbands of the petitioners 1 and 2, now in their mid-sixties, and the 3rd petitioner herself, worked as Teachers and retired. The record reveals that in the summer vacation of 19