Justice D.Y. Chandrachud: Defender of rights (2024)

UPDATED: Jan 2, 2024 19:00 IST

(NOTE: This article was originally published in the INDIA TODAY edition dated January 8, 2024)

It is not often that a black-robed figure from the august realm of higher judiciary competes successfully for news space with those from the rough and tumble of politics and other humbler vocations—and mostly for creditable reasons. But when Justice Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud took oath as the 50th Chief Justice of India in November 2022, just over a month after the Supreme Court began live-streaming its proceedings, he was coincidentally to become the right man, at the right time, to shine a demotic torch on a rarefied, closed-circuit world. His disarming aspect—more young sociology prof than legal eminence grise—did no harm to that cause. Nor did his belief system. He declared right at the outset, reinforcing a budding climate of opinion around him, that matters of personal liberty would get priority under his watch. That ethical pledge would come to be redeemed also through work ethic: he instituted a system in the Supreme Court to facilitate the hearing of 10 bail matters and 10 transfer petitions on each weekday. When former law minister Kiren Rijiju put in a demurral that a constitutional court like the SC should not be hearing bail applications and PILs, the CJI responded by saying it is in fact duty-bound to act with urgency in matters of personal liberty and grant relief. As he wended through 2023 with a series of landmark judgments and clearly enounced words in public, an incipient but persuasive sense built up of a judicial rampart willing to lay down constitutional lines in the sand to the executive—though that graph sloped off gently as the year rounded off.

There are two facets to Chief Justice Chandrachud’s evolving personality as he demonstrated in his tenure so far. One is jurisprudential, the core for any judge. But the other, the internal administrative realm, is no less vital—and he draws a direct link between the two. The CJI believes that the notorious tardiness of the Indian judicial system—where the process itself is said to be the punishment—is a great deterrent to justice. The Supreme Court’s case load and pendency clinch this: he inherited nearly 70,000 pending cases. To cut down the mountain, Chandrachud laid down norms about listing of cases and mentioning by lawyers. By the end of 2023, the top court had decided on 29,337 cases as against 24,825 newly registered cases, showing a higher rate of disposal. At the CJI’s initiative, the SC has now been linked to the National Judicial Data Grid, a repository of data relating to pendency of cases and disposal rate of courts across India. The move even earned praise from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

In court, the CJI played by the book, focusing on nuances and ignoring public narratives in a variety of cases: the Hindenburg-Adani affair, the Maharashtra trust vote, the administrative power tussle in Delhi. When the horrific video from Manipur went viral, the SC took suo motu cognisance. And while a 3:2 majority verdict in October ruled against granting constitutional validity to same-sex marriages, Chandrachud and Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, in minority views, made persuasive arguments for more empathetic legal frameworks.

A strong votary of constitutional morality, the CJI expedited the setting up of constitutional benches to hear matters of national importance. On the second day of 2023, a constitution bench delivered a significant judgement, upholding the legality of the Centre’s 2016 demonetisation. Today, several constitution benches are hearing politically sensitive cases, such as the Centre’s use of the money bill route to pass key legislations and the issue of electoral bonds. Chandrachud has often taken the lonely path, even at the risk of inconveniencing the Centre. That sense of a mutually restrictive duality came through early in 2023, when Vice President and Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar said Parliament was the “north star” of democracy. This was perceived as a response to Chandrachud’s statement at a seminar, calling the basic structure doctrine of the Constitution a “north star” that gives direction to its interpreters and implementers.

The bigger debate with the political class related to judges’ appointments. In January, the SC collegium headed by Chandrachud reiterated its proposal to appoint advocate Saurabh Kirpal as a judge of the Delhi High Court, rejecting objections raised by the law ministry. What caused unease in the executive was that the reason for its misgiving—Kirpal’s sexual orientation—was made public. If Rijiju, who was shunted out of office in May, was vocal about the collegium’s writ over appointments to the higher judiciary, the CJI and his brother judges faulted the Centre for its selective and tardy responses to collegium recommendations. Amid this turf war, the CJI sought to make the collegium’s functioning more transparent.

The institutional conflict manifested itself again recen­tly, with Chandrachud’s power as Master of the Roster coming under the scanner. The deletion of a case related to the delay in judges’ appointment from Justice Kaul’s hearing list on December 5, without his consent, raised suspicion that the Centre might have influenced the listing. At each previous hearing, Justice Kaul had admonished the government. Senior advocate Dushyant Dave wrote to the CJI on December 6, pointing out that many cases heard by certain benches were shifted out and listed before other benches. Chandrachud sought to dismiss the inference, but a media report highlighted how eight politi­cally sensitive cases were moved to the court of a particular judge in four months, in violation of rules. Several Opposition leaders believe the CJI has been conservative in taking on the Centre on key institutional and political issues. “He has been quick in upholding individual liberty but avoids direct confrontation with the government,” says a Congress Rajya Sabha MP. Even the Article 370 judgment came in for tough words from legal luminaries for being “bad in law”. The CJI’s stance is that his judicial conduct cannot be scrutinised through public expectations—even though bringing the law closer to the public is part of his legacy. The verdict, as always, belongs to the future.

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