CJI Chandrachud Interview: Chief Justice Of India Justice D Y Chandrachud Special Interview

special guest uh Chief Justice of India Justice Dy Chandra sir a hearty welcome to PTI and also wishing you and your family a very happy New Year sir thank you very much sham and it's a pleasure to be with you this morning Happy New Year to you to everyone in PTI and to your families uh thank you so much sir uh so as we ring into the new year uh how do you see when you look back how do you see 2023 uh in terms of the performance of cours all over India and failures and successes of uh the courts all over India and the performance of Judiciary as a whole because there has been lot of changes in the last one year how do you see that uh eesam uh we were coming out of the shadow of covid uh after covid descended it was a very difficult time for the Indian Judiciary we were able to cope because of the sound technological infrastructure which our Judiciary has and our performance in that sense even during the covid times was unprecedented but at the same time covid did bring in uh very serious challenges in terms of Staff in terms of the lawyers for the judges themselves because families were involved uh it led to so many different uh issues which we had to face within the Judiciary uh but the last year was a remarkable year I feel for the Indian Judiciary uh because we have taken several new steps uh to making Justice more inclusive uh to promoting access to Justice now typically when you look at a court uh the public the citizens view the courts from the perspective of the output uh the judgments but equally they look at the process which is going on in the courts because that process has to be friendly enough for Citizens it has to promote access and it should not be a barrier to any citizen Across the Nation uh we have taken some very unique initiatives in the last year uh they all designed to ensure uh enhanced accessibility and transparency to the Indian Judiciary uh coming to the Supreme Court for example uh we have started live streaming of important uh cases uh emanating from the Constitution benches now I believe that live streaming is one signal achievement of our Indian uh Judiciary over the course of the last year which is intended to take the work of the Judiciary to the homes and the hearts of people the Supreme Court has been uh regarded as a People's Court and I think there can be no better initiative uh for us to continue to be a People's Court than to ensure that we live stream our proceedings so that people understand the nature of the work which is carried on in the courts they understand the seriousness with which every individual case whether it's an important constitutional case case or a small case involving somebody's pension uh is taken up by the court so live streaming has been a very important initiative the second important initiative which I would like to mention is uh the escr portal there are about 36,000 judgments of the Supreme Court since Independence since the court was established now all these judgments are recorded in in English which is the official language of the Supreme court but not all our citizens understand English and legal English at that so one of the very important initiatives which we adopted was first to digitize all these judgments place them in the public realm and ensure that citizens have free access to these judgments through the electronic Supreme Court reports but we haven't stopped at that uh we have been using uh artificial intelligence uh for the purpose of trans translating the judgments of the Supreme Court uh machine assisted uh translation as a consequence of which as of date as we speak about 23,500 judgments of the Supreme Court have already been translated into Hindi and they are part of the escr portal so that just as you have a free text search portal in the English version of the escr any citizen can access judgments in terms of the date of the decision the name of the judge the subject of the decision so on and so forth on the basis of a variety of search parameters and our effort is to translate all our judgments into every one of the recognized languages are recognized in the sense constitutionally recognized languages and we are moving on that in a very in a very Rapid Way apart from this uh the court has been taking very important initiatives for ensuring physical accessibility of premises uh I had constituted a committee chaired by one of my colleagues Justice rindra bat to cons to conduct an accessibility audit of the Supreme Court of India and the accessibility audit has uh revealed very important steps which we have to take to ensure that people regardless of physical disability are not denied uh access in the true sense of the term uh to the uh Supreme Court uh we've been trying to uh integrate technology into the work of our courtrooms uh the first three courts in the Supreme Court uh have been equipped completely with 120 in screens so that people from across the country can watch proceedings can address proceedings lawyers from across the country parties in person can address us from across the country uh they can submit documents digitally in fact my court is the Chief Justice of India is completely paperless uh the judges don't use paper and I encourage lawyers not to use paper all our files are delivered to us digitally and we are completely off uh paper uh we're now expanding that to court number four and court number five in another fortnite uh the same facilities would be available in court numbers four and five uh if you wanted to come to the Supreme Court and you needed a pass you had to come and lie wait in a line to get a physical pass that has been now replaced by the suswagatam portal as we call it as a result of which even uh the passes for entry into the Supreme Court have been uh have been made digital uh so a lot of new initiatives on the technology front which are being adopted not just by the Supreme Court but by the high courts there is virtually a veritable competition now among the high courts Delhi High Court espe yes Delhi High Court a lot of high courts now k kak Kerala Tamil Nadu madhia Pradesh Punjab and harana you just name the high courts and they're doing something new and I have invitations almost by the week to uh release a new uh a new uh initiative of the high Courts for for the citizenry at large one of the problems which we found was about the communication of bail orders of the Supreme Court down to the jails because it is not enough that we are extremely alert about the need to Grant bail in appropriate cases but these orders must reach the under trials or convicts many of them who are under resourced uh they don't have adequate literacy uh they do not have necessarily access to Legal Aid uh the Supreme Court has developed a module called faster and now we are implementing faster 2.0 which uses blockchain technology uh so that through the use of blockchain Technology the orders are authenticated that ures that the orders cannot be fabricated and then put out onto the public realm and we are ensuring that we have control over all subsequent steps which are taken to implement the orders so the district judge uh in one of the districts in India who has to pass the bail order consequent upon the Supreme Court uh granting bail and impose requisite conditions does that on time we can ensure that the Jailer in one of the jails across India uh has actually delivered the order they will report back onto the portal and all this is capable of being monitored uh one of the uh initiatives which we adopted in the last year to promote gender sensitivity was to come out on a gender handbook the idea of the gender handbook atam is that we in our legal discourse we must be more uh attuned to the need to maintain gender sensitivity so that certain phrases that were routinely used Words which were used in legal discourse are no longer acceptable why are they no longer acceptable so through this gender handbook which we are using as a training module across India for training judges lawyers paralal staff uh is something which we are working on and which we have already put out into the uh public realm we have come out with guidelines for uh for for the framing of written submissions uh litigation is becoming very complex uh it's becoming complex partly a result of the economic complexities of our times uh many of the new laws that Parliament has enacted uh are regulatory laws like like the insolvency and bankruptcy code uh this gives rise to a lot of complexity of litigation and that also reflects in the volume of the paper books which we have to deal with uh today a paper book of say 20,000 pages is not unique it's normal that's the new normal that judges have to deal with uh 30,000 pages when we dealt with uh the uh aodha case for instance 30,000 was 30,000 plus was the size of the paperbook the documents when we dealt with article 370 recently we crossed that as well now how do we equip judges to ensure that you know they don't lose sight of important parts of the paperbook so we have put into place uh standard operating procedure for the filing of written submissions for filing of joint compilations by lawyers all this to ensure that the whole process of presentation of cases is streamlined that there should not be an element of ambush in the course of legal arguments everything should be transparent so my idea about incorporating technology as part of the judicial process is to make this truly a citizen Centric judiciary uh a Judiciary which is responsive to the needs of our citizens so the object of incorporating technology is not to set apart the court from the citizens it is to enhance transparency bring out uh greater participation of citizens in the work of the courts and to ensure ultimately that we are responsive to the needs of our citizens uh sir as far as the pendency of cases is concerned it has always been a big cause of concern so in 2023 we saw that Supreme Court disposed of a record number of cases how was that possible uh what extra efforts were made for that well uh to give you the uh the figures we uh disposed of 52,1 191 cases from 1st of January to 15th of December 2023 and this exceeded our registered filing which was 49,1 191 uh which show cases in a certain way effective case management uh we did that at different levels first and foremost we did that in terms of streamlined case processing in the time which is taken between the point when a case is actually lodged in the registry to the point of time at which the case comes up for actual hearing before the court for the first time that period has been reduced from 7 days or even more it was sometimes much more than even 7 days to 5 days or less we have prioritized certain types of cases for instance cases involving bail cases involving demolition cases which are extremely urgent so that those cases can be processed even within a day and can be listed before before the court uh we have also put into place uh a uh procedure by which there is Swift handling of certain types of cases bail hios scopus eviction anticipatory bail these cases can be processed and are processed generally speaking even in one day uh so we have really first and foremost uh focused on the time which is taken from filing to the listing of a case for hearing before the court the second important step which we took was uh for having specialized benches for adjudication of cases uh the age in which we live today and this is not something which is unique to the law it's across the board it's an age of specialization and I thought that it's important that we must have judges with domain expertise hearing certain types of cases which require domain knowledge and domain expertise uh so we have for instance just to give you one example 392 insolvency and bankruptcy act cases uh were resolved in a single judgment uh I've constituted three judge bench uh special benches uh with almost 166 sittings addressing crucial matters and references uh the areas where we've had specialized benches are uh land acquisition now land acquisition cases deal with citizens rights somebody whose land is acquired is looking for the grant of compensation and it's not a sole individual a single notification would cover hundreds if not thousands of uh of our citizens so listing land acquisition cases in the Supreme Court not only ensures that these cases are disposed of by the Supreme Court but they have a Fallout in the high courts because then those decisions give guidance to the high courts on what the court is deciding in relation to a particular notification or in Rel relation to a particular issue apart from land acquisition cases cases involving compensation these are basically cases involving motor accidents uh where citizens across India are affected by motor accidents sometimes where a debt takes place their legal airs are waiting for the grant of compensation by the insurance companies so we had a specialized bench for uh compensation cases we've had a specialized bench for Direct Tax cases we have had specialized benches for indirect tax cases particularly in the context of the GST we also have specialized benches for insolvency and bankruptcy the commercial cases that we have today so setting up domain uh expert benches where judges who have specialized knowledge in that Branch would work on those cases has been really one of the key factors in speeding up uh in speeding up uh disposals so um but apart from this we have been focusing on say criminal cases criminal cases as you know are the largest single source of filings in the Supreme Court so criminal cases are dealt with almost by all judges but within criminal cases we have judges dealing with cases in which they have expertise for instance there were death references which were pending before The Supreme Court and death references have to be disposed of at the earliest because somebody in jail under the shadow of the award of the death penalty you can imagine the psychological impact on that person there's a societal interest involved as well uh so I requested one of my way senior colleagues Justice bushan gaay to take up the death references uh death references go to a combination of three judges and that has resulted in uh the disposal of a large number of uh cases involving the award of the of the death penalty as well uh so these are some of the steps which we have taken uh greater use of technology in the process and this is going to be a mission which I'm sure will continue for the future hopefully so um access for justice you have been speaking about it since long ever since you came to Supreme Court so how do you think this can be made possible that every individual every citizen of the country feels closer to Judiciary and reposes faith on the system how how do you think what are the challenges how can it be made possible well let me Begin by saying that the number of cases which are filed every year in our courts whether it's the district courts the high courts or the Supreme Courts is a clear index of the faith that common citizens have in the work of the Judiciary because the kind of work which our courts do is virtually unprecedented in any other part of the world uh for instance the Supreme Court's doors are open to every common citizen very few Supreme Courts across the world do the kind of case load which we handle and I dare say the same thing is about uh the same thing is true about the high courts as well as of uh of the district Judiciary the district Judiciary is a very important source of uh concern for me as Chief Justice of India in the sense that the first point of Engagement of a citizen is with the district Judiciary the citizen doesn't go usually to the Supreme Court as a matter of First Resort but to the district Judiciary whether it's for a stay in a in a in a civil matter anticipatory bail bail or a variety of other issues which face common citizens so it's important for us to focus on the district Judiciary uh in terms of its infrastructure in terms of filling up vacancies in terms of training judges and in putting into place better case management systems for handling the work of the district Judiciary and work is going on uh on a war footing on each of these uh issues we are looking very closely at the infrastructure of the district Judiciary uh there's a case which is pending before The Supreme Court uh namely the Malik Mazar Sultan case uh where successive Chief justices have been monitoring the uh the work in the states in terms of upgrading the infrastructure of the uh Indian Judiciary the district Judiciary filling up vacancies because we cannot have vacant posts in the Judiciary uh if we have to truly be responsive to the needs of the citizens so that's on the infrastructural front for instance recently uh as a result of an order which we passed uh Delhi the Delhi District Judiciary will be having close to 250 new courtrooms uh which were the need of the r for that Court to attend to Citizens grievances there new judges who are joining the system and there would have been no courtrooms for those uh judges to sit in so that's something which we are monitoring I engage very closely with the chief justices of the high courts to ensure that the infrastructure of the district Judiciary and the high courts is uh is upgraded apart from that it's important to have judges with the right kind of ethos uh judicial training is very important because judges must have the sensitivity to deal with the nature of the cases which they deal with whether it's cases involving gender violence whe whether it's in cases involving uh human Liberty uh whether it's commercial cases if a judge is dealing with an AR ation case they must understand the importance of arbitration in a viable commercial uh system in the country so our judicial acmy across India are embarking on very ambitious training programs for uh judges ranging from the new recruits through the district judges to the high court judges themselves we have the national judicial Academy at bopal which carries out uh training for judges across India and and then we have the Supreme Court itself uh the Supreme Court as I said has launched into uh Innovative schemes for promoting access to Justice to answer your question uh with just two or three examples I think legal literacy and public engagement are very important uh the national Legal Services Authority which is chaired by the camos judge of the Supreme Court has been doing very commendable work in promoting legal literacy they have launched for in the public defender program which is to ensure that no person who requires legal aid in criminal cases is denied legal aid and that everyone should have the benefit of a legal aid lawyer who's duly funded by the government whether in the center or the states second as I've al already said technology is a gateway uh to uh justice and the third important area is judicial infrastructure in uh promoting uh accessibility and for that uh I think the center has increased the budget of Judiciary in this financial year still what are the challenges ahead that you can uh foresee well as part of the ecorts mission mission mode project I'm in fact chairing the E Committee of the Supreme Court of India which looks after the ICT needs of almost 18,000 courts across India uh phase three of the ecorts project is about to be launched and we have a budget which has been sanctioned by the union government of 7,000 crores and we hope that with this budget and the new phase phase three of the ecorts project we will be uh entering a new uh a new phase in the uh ICT engagement of the Indian Judiciary uh my object really is to saturate we must saturate the least uh the the the the the least technologically equipped districts in the country uh to ensure that citizens in these districts particularly in the Northeast and in the hilly areas of uh the country have every facility that is available in terms of access to the internet so we are setting up ea kendras uh to tell you something about the EA kendras there is we must uh admit that there is an internet or digital divide in India not every citizen has access to the internet or has access to the same extent as Citizens maybe in some of the larger metropolitan areas would have the object of setting up Esa kendras is that we should make available within the precincts of every Court establishment all the services which are provided to Citizens as part of the ecorts project so that no citizen is denied access to the normal Services of our courts and the idea therefore is for us to reach out to Citizens through the setting up of EA kendras we also now uh we have also uh collaborated with the common service common service centers the uh initiative of the government of India as part of the digital India initiative so as to ensure that the csc's which would work at the level of every village in India would also provide the eServices which the judicial system uh provides whether it's in terms of e filing of cases in uh access to uh information about their cases about um you know e- payments uh e- payment gateways have to be incorporated and are being incorporated as part of the uh of the system another very important aspect which I would like to very briefly dwell on is the interoperable criminal justice system which is icgs and icgs basically seeks to integrate every one of the stakeholders in the criminal justice Administration the police stations the forensic science Laboratories hospitals the court system and the jail uh the jails across India and the therefore the underlying Assumption of icgs is that if we can integrate diverse stakeholders in the criminal justice Administration we'll be able to produce a more efficient uh system of dispensing uh criminal justice uh there are of course uh implementing challenges implementation challenges which we have to overcome one of the challenges which uh we face is overcoming resistance to change from traditional paper based systems to digital processes second ensuring coordinated efforts and collaboration among diverse stakeholders including the police uh jails the forensic science Laboratories uh it's not just about putting technology in place it's also about changing human mindsets training people uh and training has been a very important initiative of the uh ecorts mission mode project uh you'd be surprised to know about how many differently able citizens uh citizens who have uh physical handicaps are employed by the court system uh we have been training them by making them aware of uh all the tools which are a available to them for instance to a visually handicapped person who is a clerk in our system who who's working in the filing counters of our system uh to use these modern tools and techniques so as to make them productive and dignified uh employees in terms of uh not lacking anything which somebody who does not suffer from visual challenges uh has access to so um we also need to overcome technological barriers and um adapting to new technologies uh does pose a learning curve for judges for lawyers for court staff and we are encouraging judges to uh to use more of Technology we're encouraging lawyers to use technology the younger lawyers are extremely well-versed in the use of Technology some of the more senior lawyers some of the senior judges because they didn't grow up with technology so it's work in progress we are constantly encouraging them to adopt to uh greater use of Technology One Challenge which I must underscore is about the need to maintain data security and privacy because uh the Indian court system deals with data pertaining to the lives of individual citizens so whether they come to court in search of a solution to their matrimonial problems whether it's in relation to a commercial dispute uh whether it's in relation to an act of gender violence all this implicates data security as well and this is really a challenge and it's not something which is faced only by the Indian Judiciary uh the need to maintain data security on the one one one one hand and to ensure the privacy of citizens on the other is a key challenge which is being uh faced across the world globally and India is also engaging in in in finding solutions to uh balancing the need to have greater incorporation of Technology with at the same time ensuring that we preserve uh our data in terms of both security and uh privacy so in 2023 it has been a very eventful year for Supreme Court uh if I ask you personally your personal choice I mean so many important judgments were delivered this year by Supreme Court if you if you can name one or two which you think these judgments maybe authored by you or somebody else whom you think that these judgments can have an impact on the society well um you know it's a difficult question to answer every judgment even if it is in a seemingly individual case has an impact on society because while judges decide individual cases the law which they lay down impacts upon Society so when we decide cases the outcome of those cases redefines our vision of a just Society for the future now having said that I I may have some of my own favorites uh I may be uh criticized for being partisan to them but technology is very close to my heart so one of my favorite uh cases is something related to technology which was uh sures Maur versus the registar general where we have given we have issued a slew of directions to the high courts to ensure that uh there is a greater incorporation of uh technology in the working of the high Courts for instance uh we issued One Direction to the effect that access to video conferencing facilities shall not be denied to any citizen or to any lawyer so for instance no high court will say that only people above the age of 65 can access video conferencing because the object of technology is to make it broad-based and inclusive uh we also directed that links to the video conferencing facilities should be provided in the cause list by by various High courts uh a slew of directions have been issued in SES matur uh I've also been dealing recently about uh a case uh the all- India judges Association case which deals with upgrading the the conditions of service of our district Judiciary which to my mind is very critical uh because it is only when we provide dignified conditions of work to our civil judges the Civil judge at the lowest level the junior civil judges the senior civil judges the additional district and sessions judges and then of course the district judges and thereafter above that we can provide uh a a truly uh responsive uh Judiciary attract the right kind of talent there's some way interesting commercial cases which uh are not favorites as as I would say but cases which I would like to at least one of those cases I'd like to mention which is the recent Judgment of the uh seven judge bench on on whether arbitration agreements which are not stamped uh can be looked at when a reference is made under Section 11 for the appointment of an arbitrator now that judgment is not just dealt with a narrow issue of stamping but it has dealt with the whole arbitration Universe uh or for instance you know when we laid down in a constitution bench the group of companies doctrine that was the Cox and Kings judgment uh the group of companies do had to be looked at in a very Nuance perspective pitchforking India not just as a domestic jurisdiction but as a nation which is now increasingly looking overseas Beyond borders as Indian business goes out and foreign business entities come in to India for the purpose of carrying on business and for promoting investment so some of these cases in that sense which may not exactly be the cases which the media reports are cases which are going to reshape the the future of the nation in so many which ways and therefore I thought I should mention some of them as well so let me ask you a very crucial question about the Collegian system uh people might have been asking you this time and again but this time when Justice call retired this issue has again been raised uh do you think that this is the best system uh of appointment of Judges that we have what is your personal opinion how can it be made more transparent and uh can we have a better alternative what is your opinion well uh as Chief Justice of India I'm Bound by the Constitution and I'm Bound by the law which has been laid down by my own Court interpreting the Constitution and we have the collegium system for the appointment of Judges which has been now a part of our uh Juris Prudence since 1993 and therefore that is a system which we implement but having said that it is equally our duty as present members of the collisium system to make it more transparent to make it more objective and we have taken steps decisive steps in that regard which I'd like to share with you uh one of the steps which we took was to ensure that all resolutions of the collegium are put on the internet which are put on the uh website of the Supreme Court so that people know uh the decisions that we take and that promotes a great deal of transparency uh that's one thing second we have again put into the public realm the parameters which the collegium applies in the selection of judges to the uh Supreme Court and so many of these parameters apply to the selection of the high courts uh themselves so those parameters what are those parameters first for selection to the Supreme Court we look at when we draw uh judges to the Supreme Court from the from the Judiciary that is from the pool of high court judges uh we look at their seniority uh we look at their seniority because that defines the pool of aable judges who can be considered for appointment to the Supreme Court we look at their Merit we look at integrity that's the third important aspect as I said second is Merit the third is integrity fourth promoting a greater sense of diversity in the Indian Judiciary in terms of the recruitment of Judges from diverse backgrounds be it in terms of gender religion cast marginalized backgrounds so these are the these are the steps which we have have taken to uh to to uh to to give greater publicity to the Norms which we apply and the last but not the least certainly to ensure that the Supreme Court of India does give a broad sense of representation to different regions and high courts across across the country and we' have put these as the basic or grounding principles on which we look at judges who are selected for appointment to the Supreme Court I must also share with you that we have the center for research and planning in the Supreme Court and I've said this before the center for research and planning assists in compiling data about Judges who are in the zone of consideration so the leading cases which are decided by the judges uh these are circulated to every member of the collegium uh we do that of course electronically and uh the center for research and planning prepares a comprehensive uh document which is circulated to judges in the collisium uh that document helps us better in evaluating the judges whose names come up for consideration and discussion among uh colleagues in the uh in the Supreme Court but apart from that every single day of Our Lives as judges we are looking at the quality of the output of judges of the high courts because on Mondays and Fridays when we deal with cases going up to 80 cases per bench per per day we are dealing with cases which are decided by the high courts and those cases give us those decisions give us a clear understanding of uh the nature of the cases which are being decided by the high courts the complexity of the cases which are addressed by individual judges uh and uh therefore to say that you know uh the collegium system uh can is lacking in transparency uh would not be correct we have taken steps to ensure that greater transparency is maintained uh a sense of objectivity in the decision-making process is maintained but I must also share something and that's my caveat when we consider judges for appointment to the Supreme Court we are dealing with the careers of sitting judges of the high court people who are in Saddle as judges of the high court obviously therefore the deliberations which take place within the collegium can't be put out in the public realm for a variety of reasons many of our discussions bear on on the privacy of those judges who are under consideration for appointment to the Supreme Court those deliberations if they have to take place in a in a in a free and a candid atmosphere can't be the subject matter of a video recording or a documentation that is not the system which the Indian constitution has adopted the American Constitution requires uh confirmation of judges of the Supreme Court by the Senate that's not the system which our constitution adopted and for valid reasons the the Frameworks of the Constitution were keenly conversent with our conditions with a multi-religious a diverse uh society and it's important that we also learn to trust our decision-making process it's very easy to criticize the process but now that I've been a part of the process for several years as a senior judge of the Bombay High Court as the Chief Justice of the high court of judicat alabad as a puny judge of the Supreme Court and now Chief Justice of India I can share with you that every effort is made by our judges uh to ensure due consultation at the high courts when selections are made for uh or before recommendations are made uh as you know at the at the level of the high court judges are drawn from the district Judiciary as well as from the bar the evaluation of the judgments of the district Judiciary has uh followed very well established parameters there's a judgments assessment Committee in every High Court which looks at the judgments of the judges who are under the zone of consideration they assessed evaluated and graded and the output of the judgments assessment committee is placed before the collegium of the uh High Court when they make recommendations for appointment of District judges to the high court the collegiums in the high court also look at the personnel file maintained with reference to every District Judge they look at complaints if any against a particular judge they look at the entire service record their annual confidential reports so the process is extremely well structured and there is a 360 degree assessment of every District Judge before they are recommended for appointment in so far as appointments from the bar are concerned members of the collegium rely not merely on their own knowledge of those members of the bar who practice before them but they consult widely amongst other colleagues on the bench because other colleagues on the bench may have specialization in a particular branch of law uh which uh is the specialization of that particular lawyer for instance in the Bombay high court if a lawyer is from the admiralty bar you typically consult with judges who are dealing with admiralty cases if the lawyers are specialized in commercial law you would consult with judges who are doing with dealing with commercial cases uh so therefore there's a broad-based consultation there's a great amount of consultation between the Judiciary and the government itself because after these recommendations are made by the high court collegium uh the recommendations go travel through the uh state government the governor the chief minister thereafter to the uh Union government uh a detailed assessment is carried out by the intelligence Bureau on the antecedence character and integrity of each candidate the reports of the IB are vested are vetted by the Department of Justice in the union government the comments of the Department of Justice are then sent to the collegium of the Supreme Court which reassesses the file and the assessment is done uh very carefully uh by uh the three judge uh collegium in the Supreme Court for the appointment of judges of the high courts so the uh process of appointment of judges in India to the high courts is extremely uh well structured it takes place at uh multiple levels involving not just the high court judges themselves but the political arm of the uh government uh and the other agencies of the government before it comes to Supreme Court for its final opinion and we then make our recommendations uh to the union of India for the file to be transmitted onwards to the president of so you mentioned about the diversity in appointment of judges in terms of cast class and religious minorities Etc so have you been able to maintain that diversity in your tenure as a chief justice yes but let me not just focus on my tenure as a chief justice and tell you a little bit about what is happening across India uh let me begin with your question uh the pool of Judges available for appointment to the Supreme Court consists of people who have been appointed at least a decade earlier to the high courts judges who were appointed to the high courts a decade ago say sometime between I'm one of the oldest in the system I was appointed in 2000 but judges who were appointed to the high court say uh between 2005 and 2010 would have typically joined the bar between 1985 and 1990 little or soon thereafter so when we look at the pool which is available for appointment to the Supreme Court that is defined in a large manner by the pool of lawyers in the in the 1990s that's why it's important when we talk about the importance of when we talk about the need to promote greater diversity in the Indian judiciary we need to look at the pool right down to the grassroot level today and one remarkable thing which is taking place which is something which I must share to you as the head of the Indian Judiciary is that when we are making recruitments to the district Judiciary across India in a number of states in a large number of states the number of women is exceeding 50% in Maharashtra in a number of States Rajasthan in a number of states the number of women being recruited into the Indian Judiciary has crossed 60% it's gone to 70% that means that when you have competitive examinations and women have a Level Playing Field they are doing exceptionally well now these women who are being recruited into the district Judiciary today 10 years of 15 years down the line they would be the persons who would be uh they would be Manning positions in the high court and sooner or later they would be coming into the uh Supreme Court uh eventually for appointment uh the bar has to be made a far more conducive place for women to practice and that's one of my concerns how do we ensure a Level Playing Field for women who uh are practicing and I think there the responsibility is not just of the judges themselves but of members of the bar themselves senior members of the bar for instance must make sure that they make their uh Chambers uh places which are accessible which are welcoming of women uh I think our Chambers must factor in that women have uh very significantly different societal responsibilities than male lawyers have uh we must factor in the fact that women have a very large role to play in terms of the work which they do for their own families and therefore in terms of childbearing uh therefore we must ensure that women are not put out of the profession by these challenges which Womanhood brings to a a member of the bar uh who's a woman so I think uh there's a greater societal responsibility and not just a responsibility which we place on those who are in the collegiums but the whole structure of the bar has to undergo a change in making these spaces more welcoming of uh women so as to ensure that more and more women enter the profession of uh the courts lawyering within the courts that they succeed in the uh process of litigation as litigation professionals and then eventually are appointed to the high courts and then to the uh Supreme Court but diversity is not a matter of only gender and uh during my tenure as both a high court judge as the Chief Justice and now as a judge of the Supreme Court we've been trying our best to ensure that the Supreme Court resembles should I say the character of the nation by having women judges into the Supreme Court by bringing judges from marginalized backgrounds by bringing in judges to the Supreme Court from diverse religious groups now judges who have been appointed to the Supreme Court uh to bring in a great sense of diversity are not brought in because they belong to a particular religion that's not how the process works they've been brought in because they are among the best in the country but while bringing in the best from the country to the Supreme Court we also have an eye on having this broader sense of diversity uh in terms of gender cast uh marginalization uh religion in bringing uh diverse segments of our society into the Supreme Court uh let me seek your opinion now regarding the uh latest judgment on article 370 uh the Constitution judge bench judge the Judgment which came very recently you were part of that judgment so there has been a lot of public criticism on that judgment especially by uh justice nariman your former colleague and your former senior also his father F ariman they have spoken uh publicly criticizing the judgment on 370 so how do you respond to that criticism especially the issue of a statehood which they have uh tried to address that the Supreme Court did not Venture into that so can you elaborate on that uham a judge who decides a case speaks through their judgments once a judgment is delivered that judgment becomes public property of the nation until a judgment is delivered the process is confined to the judges who are involved in the decision of that case once we arrive at a decision and the judgment is pronounced it's public property is a property of the nation we are a free Society we have a Constitution which protects the right to the freedom of speech and expression and therefore people are entitled to exercise the right to freedom of speech and expression to critique to criticize to appreciate so far as we are concerned we decide according to two parameters the Constitution and the law and I don't think it'll be appropriate for me either to respond to criticism or to mount a defense of my judgment what we have said in the judgment is reflected in our reasons which are contained in the sign judgment and I must leave it at that as you said that judges speak through their judgment but still I'll ask another question regarding another uh of your judgment regarding that samesex marriage uh it was very close to your heart also the way I saw you dealing with this case uh do you find some kind of regret that it didn't happen the way you actually wanted it because you have been vociferously speaking about it since long and it was due to a large number of LGBT community uh how do you reflect to that when and you look back the lgbtq community has fought a long and hard battle in the realization of their rights uh to a certain extent there was a watershed in that Evolution when the Supreme Court decided nav johar uh the recent judgment was a judgment where that Community the lgbtq plus Community the queer Community sought a recognition of the right to marry I'm not going to comment on the merits of the Judgment for the simple reason that I want to share something with you with you which is very personal and which is that over the years of training which we acquire as judges you put everything into a case when you are deciding it obviously when you are hearing a case when you are reasoning for yourself what should be the ideal outcome of that case when you reserve a judgment when you are lost into your own thoughts as an individual you're reflecting very deeply but one thing which our training teaches us is that once you deliver a judgment in a case you kind of distance yourself from the outcome outcomes are never in that sense something which are personal to a judge you decide a case based on your vision of the Constitution on what you believe the vision of a just Society for the future is in constitutional terms which is what I have done I never have any regret yes I've been in the majority in many cases I've been in a minority in any cases but the important part about the life of a judge is never to associate yourself with the cause because it is only when you don't associate yourself with the cause after judge after a judgment is delivered that you can truly be dispassionate having decided a case I leave it at that and leave it for the future of our society to judge what cause the society should take uh sir I saw you in one of the uh hearings uh speaking on bench hunting or some people objecting to certain cases politically motivated politically important cases as they said given to a particular judge uh how do you respond to that is it happening or what what is behind all this the kind of allegations which were made against uh the Chief Justice of India well I must tell you that there are very well uh defined structures in processes for the allocation of cases first the roster by virtue of which cases are assigned according to subject matter is printed in advance under the authority of the chief justice so the roster is notified for everyone to see and it's on the public it's in the public realm it's published on the website of the Supreme Court second that's equally important every every judge of the Supreme Court is a judge of the Supreme Court every judge is entitled to decide any case which is assigned by the Chief Justice to them in terms of the roster third and I've been a member of the bar as well no lawyer can insist that I will have my case decided only by a particular judge because that does not do justice either to the credibility of individual judges or to the purity of the administration of justice fourth there are well- defined processes cases are assigned by the Chief Justice when a case comes up for assignment for instance if a judge recuses themselves normally cases are assigned by according to roster automatically by the computer if a judge recuses Cas is put up before the Chief Justice and the Chief Justice will then re reassign that case the reassignment may be to a senior judge it may be to a junior judge once the case is assigned to that judge that case follows the judge unless for instance the judge Falls sick and says well I don't want to take up that case I don't want to take up that case because I'm not on duty for the next month in which case it has to be reassigned but I'm very very clear in my mind that if the credibility of the institution of the Supreme Court is to be maintained we have to ensure that the allocation of cases in the Supreme Court is not going to be a lawyer driven allocation it has to be an allocation which we do in terms of our processes and systems which are laid down in the Supreme Court having said that I can only say that well you have to trust your decision makers so one final question again regarding one of your important judgments uh that is the aodha Judgment you are part of that bench so it is very I mean everyone is is curious to know who authored the Judgment because it happened for the first time that the Judgment did not carry any name who authored the uh the Judgment so can we can you now reveal what exactly was behind that and who actually authored that judgment many believe that it's you uh can you please elaborate to us because the issue is now almost over and the temple is to be inaugurated uh this month only so who actually authored the judgment and why it was Kept Secret still well when the five judge uh bench sat to deliberate on the uh on the Judgment as we all do before a judgment is pronounced we all decided unanimously that this will be a judgment of the court and therefore there was no authorship ascribed to an individual judge the case had a long history of conflict of diverse viewpoints based on the history of the nation and all of us who were part of the bench decided that this will be a judgment of the Court the court will speak through one voice and the idea of doing so was to send a clear message that all of us stood together not only in the ultimate outcome but in the reasons which were indicated in the judgment and that was why we decided that this will J that this will read as a judgment of the Court since we decided that this will read as a judgment of the Court it will always remain a judgment of the court and I'll close my answer with that it was a pleasure talking to you Chief Justice of India Justice Dy Chandra thank you so much for giving your precious time and talking to us at length and thank you so much thank you very much aam it's been truly a pleasure thank you very much thank you sir

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Id: Vv-mEIxTHA4

Length: 55min 59sec (3359 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 01 2024