How CJ Chandrachud belied liberal hopes for a strong judiciary that could stand up to Modi
There were great expectations from Chandrachud when he became Chief Justice of India. However, he maintained status quo and did not check executive overreach.
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In October, a month before he was due to retire from the Supreme Court, Chief Justice of India Dhananjay Yeshwant Chandrachud admitted at a speech at a law school that he has been wondering about how history would view his tenure.
His anxieties might not be misplaced.
Through his term as chief justice of India, Chandrachud, whose last working day was Friday, flattered to deceive. Held up as a liberal hope when he took oath in November 2022, Chandrachud at best maintained the status quo when it came to judicial independence. In fact, he might even have made things worse.
Chandrachud had been a liberal poster boy since his elevation to the Supreme Court bench in 2016. Erudite, polite to a fault, media friendly, the son of a chief justice of India and possessed of an elite education, Chandrachud had brandished his progressive credentials in a series of landmark judgements in which he displayed an expansive sense of Constitutional jurisprudence.
Expectations were heightened by the fact that the previous five chief justices with substantial tenures either had either controversial or unremarkable runs. (Chandrachud’s immediate predecessor, Justice UU Lalit, is not being included here, given his short tenure.) With a two-year tenure ahead of him – the longest for a chief justice of India...
