DY Chandrachud: Was India’s top judge an icon or a pushover?

How will historical past choose my tenure?

That’s a query Dhananjay Yashwant Chandrachud, who retired as India’s fiftieth chief justice on Sunday, requested simply weeks earlier than he completed his time period.

Justice Chandrachud stated his thoughts was “heavily preoccupied with fears and anxieties about the future and the past”.

“I find myself pondering: Did I achieve everything I set out to do? How will history judge my tenure? Could I have done things differently? What legacy will I leave for future generations of judges and legal professionals?” he stated.

The soul looking got here at a time when many in India are additionally debating what legacy he leaves behind.

Justice Chandrachud served greater than eight years as a high court docket choose and as chief justice for the previous two years. He presided over probably the most highly effective Supreme Courts on this planet with jurisdiction over India’s 1.4 billion residents.

The high court docket is the ultimate court docket of attraction, the ultimate interpreter of the structure and its judgements, that are binding on all different courts in India, routinely make information – though judges seldom do.

But Justice Chandrachud, typically described as India’s “first celebrity judge” and a “rockstar judge”, has routinely hit the headlines.

According to Arghya Sengupta of the Vidhi Centre For Legal Policy, the jurist was India’s most prolific chief justice who wrote 93 judgements – greater than his final 4 predecessors put collectively – together with some on issues of seminal significance. He additionally made enormous strides by way of digitisation and livestreaming of court docket hearings – making them extra accessible to residents.

But a few of the latest protection has additionally been unflattering, with critics saying he wasn’t assertive sufficient and his tenure has been disappointing.

The Harvard-educated choose has many firsts to his title – he was the youngest to go a excessive court docket and his two-year-term was the longest for a chief justice in additional than a decade. He’s additionally the one chief justice whose father additionally served within the position.

During his years within the Supreme Court, he developed a popularity for being a progressive, liberal choose recognized for his nuanced and considerate judgements associated to issues of liberty, freedom of speech and gender and LGBT rights.

He was a part of landmark rulings that decriminalised homosexuality and allowed menstruating ladies into Kerala’s Sabarimala shrine. His utterances on the appropriate to privateness and proper to dissent had been extensively praised.

So, his elevation to be India’s high choose in November 2022 was welcomed by senior attorneys, activists and residents with many expressing a “strong hope that under his leadership the court will rise to greater heights”.

It was a time when India’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) authorities was on the point of safe a 3rd time period within the 2024 common election.

Opposition events, activists and sections of the press had been accusing the federal government of focusing on them, with international rights organisations saying Indian democracy was beneath menace.

Although the federal government denied any wrongdoing, a lot of India’s high lecturers, rights activists and well-liked opposition leaders discovered themselves in jail and the nation stored sliding on the worldwide press freedom index. (The authorities has at all times rejected such scores, saying they’re biased in opposition to India.)

Senior lawyer Kamini Jaiswal says Justice Chandrachud’s appointment had come at “a crucial juncture as some of the last chief justices had left under a cloud of dark spots and the position had been denigrated with serious allegations”.

“So, we thought Justice Chandrachud would use his erudition and brilliant mind to do a lot of good for the citizens. But he has been disappointing,” she stated.

Senior Supreme Court lawyer Chander Uday Singh says his document is “a mixed bag”.

“In his judgments, he would lay down the law brilliantly which could be used as a precedent for future cases. But whenever the state was heavily invested in any issue, he failed to hold power to account, so the state got away with what they had set out of achieve.”

For occasion, he factors out that the court docket struck down a authorities scheme that allowed individuals to make nameless donations to political events, calling it unconstitutional and unlawful. “But then he did not hold anyone accountable for the illegality.”

Similarly, when it got here to a political disaster within the western state of Maharashtra or Delhi’s energy wrestle with the federal authorities, his judgments tended to favour the federal government, he provides.

“There was hope that through his judgments, he would set things right in a country that is under a strong majoritarian government. But he fell short.”

Several high attorneys have additionally criticised Justice Chandrachud for what he did because the “master of the roster” by failing to successfully forestall the extended incarceration of political prisoners – resulting in the dying of a few of them with out ever getting bail. This occurred regardless of Justice Chandrachud saying that bail ought to be the norm and never the exception.

And as he neared his retirement, Justice Chandrachud additionally made headlines for what he didn’t within the court docket, however outdoors.

In September, there was uproar over a viral video that confirmed him praying at house with PM Modi throughout a Hindu spiritual competition.

Ms Jaiswal stated by publicising the photograph, “a message was being sent that the chief justice is close to the PM”. Lawyers, former judges, opposition politicians and many voters additionally criticised him saying “the presence of a politician at a private event erodes the perception of impartiality of the judiciary”.

Another burst of criticism greeted Justice Chandrachud’s remark final month when he stated he had requested God for an answer to the vexed Babri Mosque-Ram temple dispute. “I sat before the deity and told him he needed to find a solution and he gave it to me,” he stated.

The remark led to a firestorm of criticism, not fully surprising because the mosque-temple dispute has been probably the most contentious and religiously polarising points in trendy India.

The mosque was demolished by Hindu mobs in 1992. A five-judge bench, which included Justice Chandrachud, dominated in 2019 that the demolition was unlawful, however nonetheless gave the disputed land to Hindus and a separate web site for the mosque to be constructed. Earlier this yr, PM Modi inaugurated a grand new temple on the web site, fulfilling a longstanding promise by his celebration.

So, no shock then that Justice Chandrachud’s remark, seen by many as spiritual, was extensively criticised.

Retired excessive court docket choose Anjana Prakash instructed HW news that his remark was “dramatic, filmy and laughable and it had brought down the level of judiciary”.

“A judge has to decide cases on principles of law. Where does God come into a judgement? Besides, people have different gods. And if a justice from another faith had said this, would the reaction be the same?” she requested.

Justice Prakash and different critics puzzled if he was cosying as much as the federal government for a post-retirement task.

In the times previous his retirement, Justice Chandrachud addressed a few of the criticism in interactions with the media.

“The separation of powers doesn’t mean antagonistic relations between the executive and the judiciary, it doesn’t mean that they cannot meet,” he stated at an occasion by the Indian Express newspaper, including that such conferences weren’t used “to cut deals”.

“The ultimate proof of our good behaviour lies in the written word – in our judgements. Is it consistent with the constitution or not?”

Justice Chandrachud stated his touch upon looking for divine steerage was as a result of “I am a person of faith” and “to impute motives to judges is not right”.

He added that courts had been dealing with stress “from lobbies and pressure groups” and they might reward a call vital of the federal government, but when he dominated in favour of the federal government, they questioned his independence.

At his farewell on Friday, the outgoing chief justice stated he was maybe India’s most trolled choose, however his “shoulders are broad enough to accept all criticism”.

And on the weekend, he instructed Times of India that he believed he had “left the system better than I found it”.

“I’m retiring with a sense of satisfaction,” he stated.

Follow BBC News India on Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.