The wheels of justice keep on grinding even as Chief Justices come and go. It was to ringing anticipation that Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud had taken office more than two years ago in a term longer than those of many of his more recent predecessors. And he leaves on a note of some ambiguity regarding his legacy that he spoke about towards the end of his term.
Take the case of the Aligarh Muslim University whose minority status had been struck down in 1967 by the Supreme Court on the grounds that it was created by a Central law and had the status of a Central university funded by the Government of India and was hence not eligible to be a minority institution.
A clear definition of its right to minority status, considering the history of the institution established in the 19th century and founded as the AMU in 1920, is to be welcomed now though the ruling by the larger bench on the guiding principle that it is eligible for minority status has taken a long time to come.
The seven-judge bench, which ruled in a 4:3 majority after reserving judgment in February, has laid down the principles. How long the university will have to wait for its status is unknown as the case would have to go before a regular bench to adjudicate on the appeals against a 2006 verdict of the Allahabad high court that had struck down the law by which AMU was accorded minority status.
The fact that the issue had been in a legal maze for over seven decades and counting is a pointer to how mixed-up things can get when legal clarity is not shed on the matter on time. This is not necessarily to be taken as a pointer to how all things went in the tenure of the Chief Justice though it could be said that the highest expectations around such a legal luminary, son of a former CJI, were not wholly met.
A guiding principle in the life of great institutions has also been that those who come to head it should not rock the boat as the sense of permanency is far greater around organisations. Regardless of the personalities who come to head it from time to time, it does not seem to matter if a positive change can help reform the way it is going or define its future path along a more ideal path to progress.
The CJI’s failure to reform the somewhat lugubrious picture in terms of pendency of cases — as of August 30, 2024, nearly 83,000 were lying before the Supreme Court — may not, again, be his fault as he is not to be blamed for the slow nature of the Indian justice delivery system itself.
Heading the hallowed court in tumultuous times when divisiveness seemed to be the order of the day in the life of the nation, the CJI may have been seen at his boldest in striking down poll bonds as illegal. The verdict even led to exposing its basic premise of anonymity of donors to political parties. And yet nothing transpired from such a bold judgment, save the exposure of donors, as the parties, big and small, have held on to the funds so obtained.
There may have been avenues through which the CJI could have tackled many contentious issues like striking a blow for the autonomy of democratic institutions, and curbing the power of the state to snoop on citizens or run bulldozers through the properties of accused persons and keep many persons inimical to the rule and rulers behind bars on flimsy grounds.
The courts did rule on many contentious issues but generally showed little enthusiasm save in handing down ambiguous rulings that did not quite lead to justice being done or even be seen to be done.
