Supreme Court judgement on Ram Janmabhoomi was the judgement of the court, not any individual, Chandrachud said on Tuesday.
Waquar Hasan | Clarion India
NEW DELHI – Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud on Wednesday faced criticism for his recent statement justifying the absence of any judge’s name in the verdict related to the title suit of Babri masjid land.
In an interview with Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency published on Tuesday, Chandrachud said: “Supreme Court judgement on Ram Janmabhoomi was the judgement of the court, not any individual. So the author of the judgement was not named. It was a case of long conflict and diverse viewpoints.”
Some commentators have pointed out the fallacy in the Chandrachud’s statement saying that whether all those judgments having names of the judges are not considered “judgements of the court”.
Speaking to Clarion India, senior Supreme Court lawyer Sanjay Hegde noted the fallacy and said that the absence of judges’ names in the Ayodhya judgment was unprecedented.
However, Hegde said, “this was definitely not an individual decision of Justice D.Y. Chandrachud. All members of the bench decided that the judgment would go with the name of the court and not any individual. The court is entitled to do whatever it wants. And people are equally entitled to comment on it.”
He further said one can criticise CJI’s statement for other reasons. “Normally, judges don’t come out in the press to defend their judgments,” he added.
Investigative journalist Saurav Das said: “What a bizarre explanation. All judgements of the court are… .. judgements of the court. And still, they have the names of the author of the judgement. How can all judges on the bench arbitrarily decide not to have an author name and not follow the rules/convention? The more you watch this, the more devoid of logic it gets. The laugh at the end most certainly comes out of embarrassment”.
Lawyer Fatima Zohra Khan said: “So the walls of the court speak rather than the mouths of the judges. Thanks for explaining the bigotry. Stop embarrassing yourselves, keep the temple”.
Filmmaker Rakesh Sharma posed a few questions directed at Chief Justice Chandrachud. He asked: “Was Ayodhya-Babri judgement authored in parts by different judges or did 1 judge draft most of it? Did judges decide the verdict first, and then wrote the ‘reasoning’ for it? And – after 50/100 years, who do people applaud (or condemn) – All 5 Judges? Or the ‘anonymous’ author?”
In 2019, a bench of five Supreme Court judges delivered a judgement on the title suit of Babri Masjid’s land. The apex court directed to build a temple at the site where the masjid once stood and gave a separate land for the mosque. The judgment had received massive criticism from legal experts, political leaders and activists.
