Dear reader,
The court vacations have begun with a lot to chew on as former CJI D.Y. Chandrachud is back in discussion, not only for his new book but for a fascinating interview five days ago where, responding to criticism of the Supreme Court’s 2020 Ayodhya verdict, he noted that the very erection of the Babri Mosque (mind you, built in the 1520s) was the fundamental act of “desecration”. Historians such as Audrey Truschke are vehemently opposed, and jurists have noted that this interview has possibly opened the door for a curative petition to revisit the Ayodhya verdict.
But the broader question remains: what kind of intuition, what kind of a moral compass must lead judges? What does it say when a severely contested imagination of history is presented as the fundamental justification of a violent moment in the country’s history, by a judge who decided the fate of that conflict?
From our archives, it is a great time to revisit this essay by our co-founder Indira Jaising who characterised the former chief justice in one defining phrase: “the new right, liberal.”
“At the very top, where there is no higher authority to which one is answerable, one is only guided by one's moral compass. For a Chief Justice of India, the compass must always point towards the Constitution of India. Power without constitutional morality tracing itself to the sovereignty of the people is unhinged, unaccountable power,” Jaising writes.
