In The Interest of Justice, Equity and Good Conscience : “We have to part company with the precedents of the British-Indian period tying our non-statutory area of law to vintage English Law christening it “justice, equity and good conscience”. After all, conscience is the finer texture of norms woven from the ethos and lifestyle of a community and since British and Indian ways of life vary so much that the validity of an Anglo-philic bias in Bharat’s justice, equity and good conscience is questionable today,” said Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer in a Supreme Court judgement. The phrase “justice, equity and good conscience” or rather doctrine thereof, is a manifestation of the equity jurisdiction of the Courts, particularly the Courts in Common law Countries, where the Courts go beyond the realm of express legal provisions to ensure that justice in real sense is delivered. It is widely seen that, an adjunct prayer or relief in almost all sorts of petitions/appeals seeking a direction or order from a Court “in light of justice, equity and good conscience” is not only essentially taught to the students in law schools, but is employed invariably by the lawyers in actual Court practice, more prominently in constitutional courts of the country. While the concept represents unchanging eternal universal value, its application has to be tailored to everchanging myriad situations crying of justice. Like purposive interpretation devised to remedy unforeseen situation not clearly envisaged by the draftsman of a statute, equity justice and good conscience fill the gap of law as may appear in abstract and need for justice of a situation. As human mind can never be replaced by a computer, no enacted law can provide for justice for all situations. Yes, social milieu in a given society may depend on its moral and social conscience, represented by persistent values of old social order, aspired values of evolving society and felt need for justice of a situation as per current thought stemming from a fact situation. Thus, the English concepts particularly those derived from enacted law to meet need of a situation of that country cannot represent universal principle of equity justice and good conscience which certainly needs to be guarded in its application to Indian contexts. Why noble thoughts from anywhere can enlighten everyone, principles applied to another fact situation may not be of any relevance. Mechanical application is dangerous.
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