‘We tried to set things right in Supreme Court’
Says the ‘extraordinary’ Jan 12 presser, where 4 judges came together to criticise the Chief Justice, was to inform the nation about what was wrong in the apex court
NEWDELHI: Friday was the last day in office of a man who has become, arguably, India’s most controversial Supreme Court judge. Jasti Chelameswar, 64 (he turns 65 on Saturday, June 23), was the only judge to dissent when the Supreme Court scrapped the government’s National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) law, which replaced the older system of a collegium of judges appointing judges to the higher judiciary with a commission. He was also one of the four judges who, earlier this year, took on Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra for what they saw as inadequacies in the way he was administering the court and allocating cases. In an interview with Hindustan Times’s
Ashok Bagriya and Bhadra Sinha,
Chelameswar pulled no punches, and spoke of issues from nepotism, the chief justice’s office, and the role of the government. Edited excerpts: which, according to us, were not right in the Supreme Court and not in the interest of the people of this country. We made our attempts to set the things right according to our perception of what is wrong and what is right in that context. Since we concluded that we were not able to set the things right, we decide to inform the nation. We didn’t want anybody to blame us a decade or two later that these fellows did not discharge their duties. After the press conference, we became rebels and were even branded as a gang of four. The press conference was called extraordinary; yes, it was extraordinary. In retrospect also, I think what we did on January 12 was right. There was an undertone in our press conference that consultative process in matters affecting the judiciary were not taking place and it is for the people to see and judge if things have changed after it or not.
IMPORTANT CASES OF HIS TENURE
NJAC case: Justice Chelameswar expressed strong views on “a lack of transparency” in the judiciary in a strongly-worded dissent note while disagreeing with four fellow judges who struck down the NDA government’s National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act Shreya Singhal/66a case: A bench of Justices Chelameswar and R Nariman struck down provision 66A of the IT Act, which had been used to arrest people for their online posts. The section “arbitrarily, excessively and disproportionately invades the right of free speech”, the bench said
Aadhaar case: In 2015, Justice Chelameswar was a part of the three-judge bench, which said that no Indian can be denied government subsidies and other services just because they do not have an Aadhaar number/card
Right to privacy: Justice Chelameswar was a part of the nine-judge bench that declared right to privacy a fundamental right in August 2017.
CONTROVERSIES
Jan 12, 2018, press conference: With three other judges, he criticised the way cases are allocated in SC Prasad Medical College case: A bench headed by him referred a case of alleged corruption against judges to a bench of five judges
Collegium boycott: In Sept 2016, Chelameswar wrote to then CJI TS Thakur, refusing to attend collegium meets over a “lack of transparency “Refusal: Says no to a farewell that is traditionally given to the retiring judge of the Supreme Court. attempt failed. The point is that the old system is the law now, but even that system is required to function in the interest of the people of this country and anything that is not rational and transparent is not in the interest of the people of this country. When you choose a person as a judge, you need to see a certain procedure has to be followed. Is the selection process as rational as it should be? Are we adopting a procedure that is transparent? the power to recommend the name of the new chief justice, but exercise the power bona fide — he/she has to give reasons. The tradition is that the seniormost is recommended as the new CJI, but for any reason, if the CJI departs from the tradition, he/she should have the freedom to do so provided he/ she records his/her reasons (saying), “For this reason I consider the seniormost judge as unfit to become the CJI.” There is nothing wrong in the CJI recommending the name, somebody has to do it.