Previously inconceivable things are becoming routine in New India. The Union law minister lecturing the higher judiciary about ‘boundaries’, for example, seems to be daily business now. Kiren Rijiju recently spoke to lawyers and judges, including the Chief Justice of India, about the lines drawn by the Constitution separating the executive, the legislature and the judiciary and the need to work within these. The question here is whether Mr Rijiju was practising what he was preaching. Telling the judiciary — the direction of his speech could not have been clearer — its business and limits was encroachment, and also blatantly unconstitutional. But then, Narendra Modi’s men do not care about irony. And this was not the first time Mr Rijiju had indirectly asked that the higher judiciary keep within boundaries: his remarks about the lakshman rekha immediately after the Supreme Court put on hold the application of the law against sedition are immortal in their impropriety. It is in this context that the law minister’s remark that ‘they’ did not wish to ‘undermine’ the judiciary and that the three pillars of the democracy would remain strong if they worked with ‘mutual respect’ sound less than innocent. Who was lacking respect? If the judiciary, then had it failed to respect the Constitution and its ideals? It can respect nothing else.

Perhaps the recent grants of bail to certain activists revived the theme of boundaries. Or the troubling issues being taken up the Supreme Court — the constitutionality of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, for instance, or the abrogation of Kashmir’s special status under Article 370. Mr Rijiju also brought up the pendency of cases, envisaging an alternative dispute redress system. Since the Supreme Court struck down the government’s attempt to change the judges’ appointment system by ensuring a greater say by the executive, there have been incremental efforts to push the envelope from all sides. How can the government create an alternative for dispute redress? Can it, then, encroach on the judiciary? Mr Rijiju also announced the formation of a mediation council and an arbitration council. Mediation and arbitration under the government’s auspices may deliver many things, but not justice. Perhaps the law minister should have talked of redrawing the constitutional boundaries; after all, that is the effect he and his government seem to be aiming at.