PoliticsJudiciary
Former judge S K Kaul says Chandrachud sought government 'pre-approval' on judges' names
In a forthcoming memoir and a television interview, the retired Supreme Court judge describes the then Chief Justice wondering aloud whether to phone the government during a collegium meeting. Chandrachud says he has not read the book.
Key points
- Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul's memoir is titled Without Fear or Favour.
- He says D Y Chandrachud, as Chief Justice, was 'too deferential' to the government on appointments.
- Congress said the account raises serious questions about judicial independence.
Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, who retired from the Supreme Court in December 2023, has accused former Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud of seeking the government’s approval for judges’ names before the collegium had finished deciding on them.
Kaul makes the charge in a forthcoming memoir, Without Fear or Favour, and repeated it in a television interview with journalist Karan Thapar for The Wire, excerpts of which circulated on Sunday. By evening the account had become a political story, with the Congress saying it raised questions about the independence of the courts.
The sixth name
The episode Kaul describes took place at a collegium meeting on Supreme Court vacancies. Five names had been agreed in advance. At the last minute, he writes, Chandrachud proposed a sixth.
Chandrachud then took him aside and “wondered aloud whether he should telephone out to check the government’s view”, Kaul writes. He says he advised against it while the collegium was still deliberating, and that he and other members did not back the sixth candidate. In the interview, Kaul said he suspected the government may already have cleared the other names.
“There is a difference between consultation and what I came to regard as pre-approval,” he writes. “That sends a wrong signal.”
Kaul said he was not against the government being consulted. His worry was timing. “If you discuss the whole list beforehand, it creates its own problems,” he told Thapar, arguing that it could become an expectation for future Chief Justices, particularly those with short tenures. Nor, he said, was it new. “That used to happen. It has been happening, I think, before and after.”
He said he had no complaint about Chandrachud’s judicial ability or work ethic, but found him “too deferential” to the government on administrative questions around appointments.
Other disagreements
Kaul also writes about the case on reconsidering the Supreme Court’s judgment on the money laundering law. He says a “middle path” was discussed with Chandrachud, and that he went ahead with the hearing alongside Justice Sanjiv Khanna. He says Chandrachud took the matter on delays in judicial appointments away from his bench, after Kaul had issued notice in it to push the government to clear names.
On how the court is run, he writes that administration is largely a matter between the registry and the Chief Justice, with little consultation with other judges.
Chandrachud and the Congress
Chandrachud said he had not read the book and could not respond in detail without context. He described their collegium meetings as respectful and marked by reasoned discussion, and said he could not recall Kaul walking out of a meeting or any dissent being recorded in the collegium’s resolutions.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh wrote on X that the memoir raised “serious questions regarding the independence of the judiciary under the Modi government”, pointing to what he called government interference in appointments. The government has not commented.