CHELAMESWAR: THE MAIN REBEL

Justice Jasti Chelameswar, the senior most Supreme Court judge, would have been the CJI had it not been for an inexplicable delay in elevating him. Being the most senior judge in the Supreme Court, he knows which collegium judge was responsible for delaying his elevation which cost him the CJI’s post. If a judge is sworn-in even 30 minutes ahead of another judge, he retains his seniority by 30 minutes.

Could that have been the reason why Justice Chelameswar was the lone dissenter when the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act (NJACA) was struck down with the 99th amendment of the Constitution in 2015? In his lone dissenting judgment, he upheld the NJAC Act, passed by Parliament in 2014. He criticised the secretive collegium system of appointing judges and even wrote to the former CJI J S Khehar that a judge of the apex court, Justice N V Ramana was too close to Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, who had objected to six lawyers being made high court judges.

Later, however, Justice Chelameswar joined the other judges who gave concurring judgments on the collegium, delivered in December 2015, because it sought to improve the system. The collegium later agreed to adopt the circulation method for appointing judges, as suggested by Justice Chelameswar.

He can be compared to another maverick judge, Justice Markandey Katju, who wrote two lead news reports in a national daily giving details of how a corrupt judge was sworn in despite an adverse Intelligence Bureau report about him.

Justice Chelameswar was instrumental in compelling CJI Dipak Misra to disclose on the supreme court website the decisions taken by the secretive collegium as to why some incumbents were elevated to the Supreme Court and others were not. And, also, why some lawyers were not found fit for appointment as high court judges. Or why some judges were shunted from one high court to another.

He was the only judge to boycott collegium proceedings by calling them opaque, where a few judges proposed the names of some judges whom they knew as being suitable for elevation to the Supreme Court. No reasons were ever recorded so that even future CJIs had no access to the records.

Justice Chelameswar created a crisis of sorts when the collegium could not hold its meetings because he boycotted them, so, there was a delay in appointing new judges. For judges must be ascetics in not revealing all they know. As a former CJI, S H Kapadia was fond of advising.

JUSTICE Jasti Chelameswar can be compared to another maverick judge, Justice Markandey Katju, who wrote two lead news reports in a national daily giving details of how a corrupt judge was sworn in despite an adverse Intelligence Bureau report about him.