India, Oct. 3 -- Elected representatives cannot assume the role of the police, the administration or the courts, the Supreme Court has asserted, issuing a stern warning that the authority conferred by an electoral mandate cannot be used to intimidate citizens, enforce personal will or supplant the institutions of the state.

"No person, howsoever high the office held, can claim supremacy over the discipline of law," a bench of justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta held in a judgment released on Friday, stressing that the legitimacy of public authority rests not on the power to command but on the obligation to remain within the bounds of law.

The court said that allegations of elected representatives using force, intimidation or other ex...