Delhi High Court\u27s Socio-Economic Rights Adjudication: Some Insights

Abstract

Indian constitutionalism has always occupied a central place in the global academic discourse on socio-economic rights. This is especially due to the design of the Indian Constitution (where socio-economic rights are constitutionalized in the form of non-enforceable \u27Directive Principles of State Policy\u27) and the creative interpretations of the post-emergency Supreme Court. Nearly all academic studies, however, have focussed singularly on the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court. The decisions of the other constitutional courts in India - the High Courts have largely gone unstudied. Thus, there is lacunae in academic literature on Indian socio-economic rights enforcement. In this essay, we seek to examine the Delhi High Court\u27s socio-economic rights adjudication. More specifically, we assess the interlinking of rights, nature and design of remedies, measure its decisions vis-h-vis theories of judicial review, explore the tools used to balance information asymmetry and highlight the manner of judicial activism. The method of analysis is interpretive.