Which of the following can a court issue for enforcement of the Fundamental…

Concept. In Indian public law an instrument is identified by two things: who issues it, and the legal source that defines or authorizes it. Judicial instruments come from courts, executive instruments come from the President or a Governor, and every one of them traces to a named article of the Constitution or a named statute. For Part III the controlling provision is Article 32, which makes the right to move the Supreme Court for the enforcement of Fundamental Rights a Fundamental Right in itself. Article 32(2) names the instruments that court may use, and Article 226 confers the same power, on wider terms, on every High Court.

Application. The stem asks for the instrument a court issues to enforce Fundamental Rights. Article 32(2) empowers the Supreme Court to issue "directions or orders or writs, including writs in the nature of habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibition, quo warranto and certiorari". The instrument is therefore the writ — a formal written command of a superior court addressed to a person, an authority or a subordinate court. Indian courts recognise five forms:

• Habeas corpus — "to have the body": the detaining authority must produce the detained person before the court so that the legality of the detention can be tested.

• Mandamus — "we command": a public authority is directed to perform a public duty it has failed or refused to perform.

• Prohibition — a superior court stops a subordinate court or tribunal from continuing proceedings beyond its jurisdiction.

• Certiorari — a superior court quashes an order already passed by a subordinate court or tribunal that acted without jurisdiction or against law.

• Quo warranto — a person holding a public office is asked by what authority the office is held, and a usurper is removed from it.

Cross-check — who issues what, and under which power.

The three instruments therefore sit in three different places: one arises within a private civil suit, one is an executive act of law-making, and only one is a court’s remedy for the enforcement of Fundamental Rights. Because exactly one of the named instruments fits, the combined choice (“More than one of the above”) and the negative choice (“None of the above”) do not hold. Dr B. R. Ambedkar called Article 32 “the heart and soul of the Constitution” for this reason: it is what turns the Fundamental Rights from declarations into claims a court can enforce.