At the end of a gruelling week in public life when the morale of the government has presumably hit an all-time low, there are two broad thoughts that are doing the rounds.

Yes, if you get carried away by the rush of the moment, then you can come away with the perception that there is judicial overreach (this is not to make the case that this does not take place at all). However, if you step back and view it dispassionately, there is a deeper message in the judicial orders delivered over the last few weeks. For one, they show up the governance deficit.

But more importantly, whether it is the Supreme Court order in the Vodafone tax dispute or on the ruling that every citizen has the right to hold people in public office accountable, or the observations made in the age row involving the chief of army staff, there is a common underlying refrain: the upholding of a rules-based regime.

Traditionally, India has been defined as an exception-based regime. This has consequently vested enormous discretionary powers in the government in power, both at the state and national levels. The outcome has been the cosy relationship between sections of the industry and the government, fostering crony capitalism. In fact, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has (as published in Capital Calculus in December 2010, “Crony capitalism: enemy at the gates”) repeatedly warned of this threat to the Indian economy.

Over the previous three decades, the economy has sought to move to a rules-based regime— consistent with the ideals of a contemporary economy. This process accelerated in the 1990s with the creation of independent regulators for several sectors, and more recently in the efforts to create the Unique Identification Authority of India (that seeks to provide a unique identity to every resident and thereby lay the basis for a more efficient delivery of services). Thereafter, progressive government intervention, especially in the implementation of policy, has weakened the regulators and undermined the rules-based regime.

What the apex court has done is an attempt to restore it. In the case of Vodafone, it interpreted the existing tax laws and ruled that the government had no right to tax the transaction. Similarly, it upheld the right of a citizen of India to hold a person in public office accountable as defined within the constitutional rights. Following the same logic, it cancelled the telecom licences as it found that the implementation violated the rules through discretionary interventions by government functionaries.

This message—infractions will be judged within the rules—has gone out to the entire judiciary and presumably the reason why the special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court ruled on Friday that there was no case of home minister P. Chidambaram’s role in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the state. Which brings us to the second perception, that the legal rulings have taken a convenient turn: the only bad people are a clutch of bureaucrats led by a single politician. This sentiment, if you connect the dots, is not misplaced.

But it is the case of Capital Calculus that this is because the judiciary so far has been trying errors of commission—the trail of which are more often than not very difficult to both investigate and establish. If indeed the appellants had positioned their argument more sharply on the errors of omission in the implementation of government policy, then the legal outcome may well have been even harsher for the ruling political entity.

It is very difficult to imagine that one single individual could have pulled off such a gigantic rip-off—as the Supreme Court order seems to suggest—without the rest of the arms of the government being aware (if not playing a complicit role, as is being alleged). While there is certainly no trail of an error of commission, there is ample evidence of errors of omission—at the cabinet, regulatory and bureaucratic levels.

But as Mint’s legal writer points out, legally establishing errors of omission is even more difficult; instead, it is something that should be left to Parliament. He is right, this is politics and the best place to hold the government accountable is in legislatures—where executive authority is defined. It may be another matter that the numbers game may preclude inclement action against the government, but censures (or fear of it) are often a good means of ensuring good governance.

In the final analysis, it is clear that recent judgements are seeking to restore the rules-based regime. This sends out a strong message to investors, both domestic and foreign—risk infractions at your own risk; it may be delayed, but eventually the rules of the land, some of which are being modernized, will prevail. This is a good thing and we should welcome it.

Anil Padmanabhan is a deputy managing editor of Mint and writes every week on the intersection of politics and economics.

Also Read |Anil Padmanabhan’s earlier columns