Social justice: sunset or dawn

The concept of social justice is taken in its most comprehensive sense the legislative, the administrative and the judicial. The theme that persists throughout these lectures is that the entire functioning of the three great wings of the State must be permeated with and monitored by social justice. For this purpose he bases his entire theme on the words of the preamble to our constitution, "We, the People of India... give unto ourselves this constitution" and on Article 38 of the Directive Principles in Part IV which promises that the State "shall strive to promote the welfare of the people by securing and protecting as effectively as it may a social order in which justice, social, economic and political, shall inform all the institutions of the national life".
To buttress his point he cites G. Austin with approval who describes the Indian Constitution as first and foremost a social document, the majority of its provisions having been directed at promoting the goals of social revolution and establishing the conditions necessary for its achievement. Articles 15, 16, 17, 41 and 43 according to Mr. Justice Iyer underwrite equality, dignity and the minimum of human needs to every citizen of India, Therefore Indian democracy established under the aegis of such a social document is not and cannot be static, passive or negative. Rather it is dynamic and positive and is intended to bring about a new social order based on equality and justice through the instrumentality of law. The theme echoes Dean Pound's famous theory of law's function being social engineering.