<strong>Answer:</strong> <p style=”padding-left: 40px;”><strong>Judicial activism</strong> is a judicial philosophy that motivates the judiciary to depart from the traditional precedents in favor of progressive and new social policies. It is manifested when the Supreme Court or High Court compels the authorities to act and sometimes also directs the government, government policies, and the administration. Instances of judicial activism include directing the Centre to create new policy to handle drought, directing the Centre to set up a bad loans panel. <strong>Judicial Overreach</strong> refers to an extreme form of judicial activism where arbitrary and unreasonable interventions are made by the judiciary into the domain of the legislature or executive. This is a situation where the court encroaches upon the role of the legislature by making laws. For example, some have argued that the court’s decision on closing the issuing of licenses for new liquor shops in and around highways, was a case of judicial overreach. <strong>Reasons for</strong> judicial activism as well as judicial overreach in a democracy like India can be attributed to various factors like asymmetry of power, Public Interest Litigations, lackadaisical approach of other organs and various other factors like growing consciousness of people for their rights, globalization, active media and civil society organizations, concerns for the environment among others.</p> <p style=”padding-left: 40px;”>While the higher courts have done a tremendous amount of good for the public through judicial activism; however, in many cases, the judiciary has used excess powers, which transcend the normal bounds of judicial activism. Such judicial overreach has given rise to the following concerns:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Undermining the doctrine of the separation of powers:</strong> The power vested in the Supreme Court through Article 142 of the Constitution is extraordinary. Frequent use of this power may be considered as a violation of the doctrine of the separation of powers.</li> <li><strong>Oversight of the challenges faced by legislature and executive:</strong> Sometimes the judiciary passes the order without keeping in mind fund, function, framework, and functionary (4 F) that limit the work of the legislature and the executive. For example, cancelling of coal blocks allocations and spectrum allocations led to the poor health of the financial institutions of the country.</li> <li><strong>Lack of accountability towards people:</strong> Judiciary as an institution is not accountable to the people in the same way as the legislature and the executive are. Further, the judiciary also has the power to punish for ‘contempt of court. This way the judiciary may evade public criticism for many of its actions.</li> <li><strong>Threat to the credibility of the judiciary:</strong> Frequent transgressions in the domains of the legislature and the executive may diminish the image of the judiciary.</li> </ul> The Supreme Court has often highlighted the importance of judicial restraint. The judiciary must, therefore, exercise self-restraint and eschew the temptation to act as a super-legislature. Judicial activism is appropriate when it is in the domain of legitimate judicial review. However, it should not be a norm nor should it result in judicial overreach.