At this juncture of Indian political history, the judiciary and especially the Supreme Court, is increasingly seen as the only surviving assurance of fair play and justice, and even as "the last resort for the oppressed and the bewildered". To suggest at this moment that the Supreme Court is a centre of political power, seeking to discharge its rightful obligations of national governance, and to argue that appellate judicial process at this level is a species of political process and that it ought to be so is to provoke contention and controversy. In the present traumatically changeful political context, and the explosive years ahead, elaboration of such heretical ideas is fraught with the danger that it may be used to nourish authoritarian attacks on the structure and function of the Court. Were this to happen, it would make even more onerous the already difficult tasks of the conscientious men adorning the Supreme Court.