HANSARIA,C. J.

( 1 ) THE mighty says to the meek that you cannot command me to act; I shall act if I like, I shall not act if I choose not to act. The meek says that I possess the strength of law to give you the command; the law, which is no respecter of person and which does not allow anybody to rise so high as to be above it. This could be the scenario if what has been submitted by Shri Patnaik, learned Counsel appearing for the State, were to be accepted by us fully.

( 2 ) IN the background of the present case, the point involved may be pithily put, on our going whole hog with Shri Patnaik, as to whether the Presiding Officer of a small munsifi in a small hamlet of Orissa (say, Nowrangpur in the district of Koraput) can call upon the all powerful Prime Minister of India to appoint a Commission of Inquiry, as visualised by Section 3 of the Commissions of inquiry Act, 1952 (for short, "the Act") (hereinafter referred to as the "judicial inquiry"), if the small Munsiff be of the view that any matter relating to Union affair is of such public importance as to warrant the same.

( 3 ) WE have opened the judgement with the aforesaid prefatory remarks as the State prays for recalling our directions to hold judicial inquiry and to pay compensation of Rupees 15,000/- to the kith and kin of each person who died in the "liquor tragedy at Cuttack". This approach has been made, not to serve any narrow gain, according to Shri Patnaik, but to take care of the injury caused to the polity by our aforesaid directions, which are said to be without jurisdiction and really gross transgression into the fields reserved for the executive as well as the legislature. It has been urged that our directions have seriously affected the balance of power so finally laid down in the Constitution that nothing short of recall of the two directions is demanded. It is not ordering a judicial inquiry here or a Commission of Inquiry there which has led the State to file the present petitions, but conferment of sweeping power even to the lowest rung of the judiciary to call upon the highest in the executive, the President of India, in whose name the Central Government functions, to act as per the direction of the former. Shri Patnaik has taken great pains to submit that our aforesaid directions have caused so deep a wound to the constitutional health of the country that we should rise to the occasion to heal it by retracing our steps in the larger public interest.

( 4 ) THE aforesaid submissions have been advanced with all sincerity and emphasis at the command of Shri Patnaik, according to whom, if the judiciary can order for constituting Commission of Inquiry under the Act in a case of the present nature, even a Munsif of a far flung place of the State could call upon even the Prime Minister of the country to discharge his Government's duty to constitute a Commission of Inquiry for any other matter of public importance, of which there is no dearth, say, the recent scam and the Ayodhya upsurge, because if the view taken by us that the power conferred on the appropriate Government by Section 3 of the Act is one coupled with duty, any publicspirited citizen of the country can knock at the door of even a Munsif by pressing into service the provisions of the Specific Relief Act directing the Prime Minister of India to constitute a Commission of inquiry relating to matters of Union affairs. The "enormity of consequences" following from the direction given by us, which according to the learned Counsel was without jurisdiction, demands recalling of the same in exercise of the power which inheres in every court, when in injury is caused to anybody due to its mistake. We are reminded about the nobility of the judiciary, which has not felt shackled or declined to rectify mistakes of the present magnitude.

( 5 ) THIS is the high pedestal from which Shri Patnaik has addressed us, and addressed persuasively, assiduously, laboriously, painstakingly and at the same time sub