Former Chief Justice DY Chandrachud fostered a culture of “self-promotion”

By Dr Adish C. Aggarwala*
Immediate Past President, Supreme Court Bar Association
Ex. Vice Chairman, Bar Council of India

I really admired Dr Justice D.Y. Chandrachud when he wondered, “How will history judge my tenure”, and, “What legacy will I leave for future generations of judges and legal professionals”, at the convocation ceremony of the JSW Law School in Bhutan on 08.10.2024.

I am an apolitical entity who got elected as the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) on May 17, 2023. The responsibilities of the president of the SCBA are manifold. He has to protect the interests of the lawyers, especially the common lawyers, work to ensure their genuine expectations are met, and see to it that the sense of coherence between Bar and Bench is maintained. To fulfil these obligations, the president of SCBA is required to work closely with the Chief Justice of India and other judges of the Supreme Court, the Prime Minister of India, the Union Law Minister and the Chief Minister of Delhi.

Being a leader of the Bar, I had the opportunity to know and study Justice Chandrachud from the very close quarters. I am constrained to say that overall, Chief Justice Chandrachud’s contribution to our judicial system was more about appeasement and publicity at the cost of others. ‘Much ado about nothing’ is also applicable to his work. A quarter century of obiter dictum, the height of which was exhibited, during his tenure, at the very top of the judicial pyramid. The nation heard giga bytes of oral observations and passing mentions to discredit the government thereby getting kudos from media and social activists. There was little to match his activism by way of judicial decisions. History will judge him as this: “Sound and fury, signifying nothing (much).” He fostered a culture of self-promotion rather than collaborative recognition.

When former President of the SCBA, Dushyant Dave, in an open letter dated 06.12.2023 to the Chief Justice of India, expressed his anguish over the shifting of cases, some of which were politically sensitive, from one bench to another, I was called by Justice Chandrachud and asked for my opinion as to whether he has the right to be the master of the roster or not. When I told him that it is well-settled law that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India, is the master of the roster and he has the right to shift the cases from one Bench to another, then he requested me to criticise Dave on behalf of the SCBA. However, I expressed my inability to criticize him by passing a resolution of the SCBA as many members of the Executive Committee were his supporters and he had remained the President of the SCBA for three terms. Although I had defeated Mr Dave with a huge margin of 191 votes in the SCBA elections, Justice Chandrachud still pushed me to find a solution. Then, I agreed to write a letter to the Chief Justice on my individual letterhead and not on the letterhead of the SCBA clarifying the legal position. I drafted the letter and then I was asked by him to add the sentence: “After your Lordship took over as Chief Justice of India, all administrative issues have been streamlined right from mentioning of matters, listing of cases and other issues concerning the Registry”. I added the said sentence in my open letter dated 07.12.2023 addressed to the Chief Justice of India Dr Chandrachud.

The contents of my letter were widely published and when I informed Justice Chandrachud that if he wants, I can request Manan Kumar Mishra, chairman of the Bar Council of India, to initiate disciplinary proceedings against Dave. The Chief Justice told me that it could escalate the situation. He told me that my letter dated 07.12.2023 has brought the desired results and now Mr Dave will not create any nuisance for him during his remaining tenure as Chief Justice of India. This issue reflects that Dr Chandrachud can take any support to maintain his position but he did not want to escalate the situation by taking the extreme step.

During my tenure as the president of SCBA, the Supreme Court of India was in the process of designating Senior Advocates. There was an apprehension that the Supreme Court of India would not designate more than 15 lawyers as Senior Advocates as besides Justice Chandrachud,  Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Justice S. Ravindra Bhat and  Justice Sanjiv Khanna had very strong views on the issue of designating. I, however, requested that he should be liberal in designating Senior Lawyers and at least 100 lawyers should be designated Senior. He told me that he wanted 20 of his own acquaintances to be designated as Senior Advocates but with the above-mentioned Judges being part of the decision-making process, he may not be in a position to designate more than 15 lawyers and he would not get even a single designation for his choices. He requested to get the process of designation delayed and suggested to me that I should write a letter to him in this regard, and I did write a letter dated 14.08.2023, “with a request for clarification in the new guidelines for Senior Advocates designation that requirement for recommendation of Hon’ble Judge is not required in old applications and shall be applicable only for new applications.”

Probably using this letter as a basis, Justice Chandrachud managed to get the time extended and the Registry of the Supreme Court of India issued a Notice No. F.No.16/CDSA/2023/03 dated 27.09.2023, requiring the Applicant-Advocates to furnish copies of their publication work for the purpose of assessment of quality by 13.10.2023.

I was asked to write another letter to him seeking an extension of time till 08.11.2023 as soft copies of the publications needed to be collected from different parts of the country. I wrote the said letter on 09.10.2023 and sought an extension of time. Justice Chandrachud was aware that during this time Justice S. Ravindra Bhat would retire on 20.10.2023 and Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul on 25.12.2023. Thereafter, on 19.01.2024, he designated 56 lawyers as Senior Advocates. However, he ensured that the names of some capable and well-deserving lawyers were withheld and it was only after significant public backlash, that the application for designation as Senior Advocate of these five lawyers was approved within 47 days of rejection/deferment of their respective application. This act also was in contravention of Guideline No. 20 which forbids the name to be reconsidered within one year of the rejection/deferment. All these five lawyers were very deserving and should have been designated in the first instance on 19.01.2024.

Justice Chandrachud designated 45 retired Chief Justices and Judges of different High Courts on 16.10.2023 except two retired judges of Allahabad High Court namely Justice S.S Chauhan and Justice Zaki Ullah Khan due to ‘personal reasons’. Their applications were deferred for two years which was contrary to Guideline No. 20 of “Guidelines for Designation of Senior Advocates framed by the Supreme Court of India, 2023”, which prescribed that the applications can be deferred only for one year if it is required.

Justice Chandrachud designated 155 advocates and retired judges as Senior Advocates from all political parties, to appease every said political party, sometimes even going against the Guidelines of having specific experience as well as the restriction clause of reconsideration within one year.

Justice Chandrachud was very fond of attending seminars and conferences. Even after being fully aware that Justice S. Ravindra Bhat will be retiring on 20.10.2023, he decided to speak at 3rd SDR Comparative Constitutional Law Discussion on “Perspectives from the Supreme Courts of India and The United States” organised by the Society of Democratic rights, New Delhi (of Ms. Vibha Datta Makhija, Sr. Advocate) and the Georgetown University Law Center, Washington DC, to be held on 23.10.2023 at 08:30 PM (Indian Standard Time). After finishing Court work on 18.10.2023, he left India as he was required to meet some “influential person” and he was not interested in being a part of the farewell and Ceremonial Bench for Justice S. Ravindra Bhat, because he was annoyed with him as he along with Justice Hima Kohli and Justice P.S. Narasimha, disagreed with his opinion and judgment of allowing non-heterosexual couples to jointly adopt in the same-sex marriage case.

Not only this, Justice Chandrachud apparently told Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul that he should hold a Ceremonial Bench for Justice S. Ravindra Bhat in Chief Justice’s Court No. 1.

On the day of Justice S. Ravindra Bhat’s farewell on 20.10.2023, we were waiting outside Court No. 1 of the Chief Justice of India for the Ceremonial Bench. But that was not opened by the Registry. The Ceremonial Bench was only held in Court No. 2 for the first time in the history of the Supreme Court of India. Justice Chandrachud also could not attend the farewell function organised by me as the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, on 20.10.2023 and we requested Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul to preside over the farewell function of SCBA.

Chief Justice Chandrachud was also very fond of inaugurating different offices, canteens, libraries, consultation rooms etc. One glaring instance is that of the “SCBA Arbitration and Consultation Room” on the ground floor of M.C. Setalvad Chambers Block. I requested the Registry to make necessary repairs, in the said room. When it was ready, Senior Advocate Vijay Hansaria, who happens to be the son of a retired judge of the Supreme Court of India Justice B.L. Hansaria, requested me to allot the said room for holding one meeting of Arbitrators and Mediators which he always used to hold every year. I requested the honorary secretary to allot the same to Vijay Hansaria, but I was informed that the Registry has not handed over the said room to the SCBA after the repair work. Thereafter, I had a conversation with the Registrar General of the Supreme Court of India to hand over the same to SCBA as it is immediately required by our senior member, who had already held the position of vice-president of SCBA. The Secretary-General informed me that the “SCBA Arbitration and Consultation Room” can not be handed over now as the Chief Justice of India had desired to inaugurate the same. At that time, I requested the Secretary-General to inform the chief justice that he should not inaugurate the existing “SCBA Arbitration and Consultation Room” as only some repair work was done on the same and people would ridicule the inauguration. But the Secretary-General told me that you still wanted to inaugurate and finally it was inaugurated by you on 11.01.2024. I preferred to remain absent in that inauguration ceremony.

Justice Chandrachud is so fond of inaugurations that, even after the official announcement of Justice Sanjiv Khanna as the new Chief Justice of India, he continued with the inauguration spree — something no previous Chief Justice of India had done after the successor’s name was announced. He was fully aware that Justice Khanna’s tenure would conclude on May 13, 2025, yet he proceeded with these events of the inauguration, disregarding judicial values and participating in numerous interviews.

On 26.11.2023, the President of India was to come for the Constitution Day celebration to the Supreme Court and I was asked to be on the dais and give a 5-minute speech. On-demand, I forwarded my draft speech in which I appreciated the Prime Minister of India and Chief Justice of India for introducing a video conferencing system. At that time, Justice Chandrachud suggested I delete the appreciation of the Prime Minister and that only he should be praised. The said suggestion was outrightly rejected by me as I felt that without the financial support of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Chief Justice of India would not have been in a position to introduce the video conferencing system. The same happened when Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 28.01.2024 visited the Supreme Court for “Unveiling the 75th Year of the Supreme Court and I drafted a speech in which I appreciated both the Prime Minister and the Chief Justice of India but the latter insisted that only he should be appreciated and not the Prime Minister.

When I requested Justice Chandrachud to be our Chief Guest at the Christmas celebration, to be held on 25.12.2023, he suggested that we should hold the Christmas celebrations at Litigants Canteen adjacent to the A.K. Sen Chambers Block of the Supreme Court premises which is outside the security zone. He specifically said that we should invite the print and the electronic media to cover this festival and he would sing Christmas Carols that will become viral throughout the world as this will be the first time that a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India will be singing. We organised the Christmas celebration in Litigants Canteen which was widely covered by the international and national electronic and print media.

He was very happy as we organised many functions for the retirement of judges, felicitation of new judges, and religious functions of different religions and he was the chief guest in all of them. At least on two occasions, he told me that I should again contest for the Presidentship of the SCBA.

Chief Justice Chandrachud would remember that the SCBA decided to hold an “International Seminar on International Terrorism and Human Rights” in January/February 2024 at the Plenary Hall of Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi and I wrote a letter (No. SCBA/EC.2023-24/President-26 dated 26.12.2023) to Amit Shah, Union Minister for Home Affairs, to request him to inaugurate the same. When I informed Justice Chandrachud that I had invited the Union Home Minister for the inauguration, he told me that he would not attend the seminar as the Union Home Minister was invited and not him, to inaugurate the seminar.

When I wrote a letter to Chief Justice Chandrachud on 13.02.2024 for issuing directions of “No adverse order” by courts due to farmers’ agitation and also to initiate Suo Motu action against erring farmers, there was resentment in the legal community belonging to rural areas. The members of SCBA from rural areas approached our executive committee members and some members moved an invalid requisition for calling a general body meeting for my removal. The said removal requisition was not moved by the requisite number of members of SCBA. Due to the said situation, Chief Justice Chandrachud thought that Dr. Adish Aggarwala had lost the confidence of the Bar and, therefore, now he did not require my support.

Chief Justice Chandrachud was heading a Constitution Bench dealing with the electoral bonds and started misbehaving with learned Solicitor General for India Tushar Mehta and State Bank of India’s senior advocate and former Solicitor General Harish Salve. When it was brought to my notice that the proceedings are being held contrary to Article 145(3) and Article 132 of the Constitution of India and the Supreme Court Rules, I sought Presidential reference vide my letter dated 12.03.2024 addressed to the President of India. I was also compelled to write a letter dated 14.03.2024 to Chief Justice Chandrachud as the chairman of the All India Bar Association and president of SCBA. In the said letter, I requested the Chief Justice to suo motu review the judgment dated 15.02.2024, especially the direction: e. “The ECI [Election Commission of India] shall publish the information shared by the SBI on its official website within one week of the receipt of the information, that is, by 13th March 2024 made in the judgment.”

The proceedings were not conducted as per Article 145(3) and Article 132 of the Constitution of India and no substantial question of law was framed by the Division Bench headed by Chief Justice Chandrachud while referring it to the Constitution Bench. Even in the Constitution Bench hearing, no substantial questions of law were framed by him. However, only two substantial questions of law were framed by him while writing the judgment for the Constitution Bench. Also, his Bench should have framed a 3rd substantial question of law as such: “Whether the amount of donation and identity of the corporate donor, who have contributed according to the legal enactments, as are in force and believing that their identity and donation will not be disclosed, should be disclosed if the Electoral Bonds scheme, is held ultra vires to the provisions of the Constitution of India” in case you wanted to issue direction (e) as mentioned aforesaid.

The Chief Justice felt very annoyed with my letter and called the executive committee members and office bearers of SCBA to pass a resolution condemning me even though I had not sought the suo motu review on the letterhead of SCBA. When the Chief Justice of India requests the executive committee members to condemn their president then, they feel duty bound to oblige him and hence, they issued a clarification distancing themselves from my views.

From that point in time, Justice Chandrachud decided that I should not win the forthcoming election of SCBA. However, he received the information that it was only me who could win amongst the prospective candidates at that time. I later learnt that he suggested to Kapil Sibal to contest for the presidentship of SCBA as he can spend any amount and also he had been a Union Minister for Law and Justice and president of SCBA. Not only this, Justice Chandrachud conveyed to lawyers ideologically inclined towards BJP that they should not support me and therefore, anti-BJP cadre supported Kapil Sibal and the Bharatiya Janata Party cadre supported Pradeep Rai and as a consequence of this, Kapil Sibal won whereas I could achieve only the third position.

*Edited excerpts from Senior Advocate Dr. Adish C. Aggarwala’s letter today to Dr DY Chandrachud, who recently retired as the Chief Justice of India. The views expressed are personal and do not represent the views of the Global Bihari editorial team.