I am surprised at the opposition to this article for this reason that vast powers of issuing constitutional writs which the House has vested in the Supreme Court are such that a very large number of cases relating to constitutional propriety will be determined by the Supreme Court or the High Court before anything else is done in a case. My Friend Pandit Bhargava raised two objections, one of the cost of litigation and the other of delay. If the whole position is analyzed neither of these arguments will be found to be valid. As regards cost, is it not much cheaper that a constitutional issue which goes more or less to the very foundation of the case should be decided at an early stage rather than evidence which will be useless is led in the case before the party comes in appeal to have the constitutional issue decided? The latter course is bound to be more costly. Most cases would practically be decided one way or the other by the decision of the constitutional issues. Then as regards the delay, it is common knowledge than in subordinate courts it takes a long time before a case is disposed of and the party which wants to raise a constitutional issue is sure to go to High Court at an earlier stage of the case and there will no additional delay so far as the progress of the case in the lower court is concerned. Long before a case ordinarily reaches the hearing stage in the subordinate court such an issue would have been decided by the High Court.
