Chandrachud was part of the then CJI Ranjan Gogoi bench which had delivered the judgment in favour of a temple in 2019
Team Clarion
NEW DELHI – Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud has come under criticism after his statement claiming that he prayed to God to find a solution to the case related to the title suit of Babri Masjid in Uttar Pradesh’s Ayodhya.
Addressing a gathering at Kanhersar village in Khed taluka of Pune, Chandrachud said: “Very often we have cases (to adjudicate) but we don’t arrive at a solution. Something similar happened during the Ayodhya (Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid) dispute which was in front of me for three months. I sat before the deity and told him he needed to find a solution”.
In November 2019, the Supreme Court gave a verdict in favour of Ram Temple handing over the land where the Babri Masjid once stood before being shamelessly demolished by Hindu mobs in 1992.
Chandrachud was part of the then CJI Ranjan Gogoi bench which had delivered the judgment.
The statement made by Chandrachud faced criticism for treating the matter of justice as a religious one.
Former Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju took a dig saying that all of his judgements could be wrong as he is an atheist. “God guided CJI Chandrachud in deciding the Ayodhya Babri Masjid case. Since I am an atheist, I suppose all my decisions must have been incorrect,” said Katju.
In detailed criticism of CJI’s statement, prominent journalist Sidharth Vardarajan said the judges take recourse to this kind of ‘divine’ rationalising and grandstanding when they know a judgment they have delivered is legally unsound.
“He and the Ayodhya bench did not ‘find a solution’ to the dispute. They found it in favour of the powerful party that illegally demolished the mosque. ‘Might is right’ can hardly be called a solution. The fact that the CJI thinks he delivered a divinely ordained solution to the dispute explains why he has helped reopen the Gyanvapi dispute (and countless other disputes as a result) and is a pointer to the kind of divinely-ordained solutions that will doubtless follow,” said Vardarajan.
He asked how could the judge have asked “the deity” to help find a solution to the dispute when the deity — through his ‘next friend’ — was a party to the original dispute. Is this not a conflict of interest?
“Judges take an oath to do justice by the laws laid down in the Constitution. They are free to believe in deities or holy books and follow their orders and signs in their personal lives. But when it comes to dispensing justice, no deity can be above the Constitution. India already has a PM who directly communes with God and follows God’s will. The country now has a CJI worthy of Modi’s own non-biological stature,” noted Vardarajan.
RJD MLA Anzar Nayeemi said that the CJI should take help from the constitution while delivering justice.
“What is this CJI sahab? You should have sat in front of the constitution and the law books of the country and taken help from them. You should have kept the constitution first. You made a great mistake. You did not do your work properly,” he said.
CJI Chandrachud’s statement came weeks after Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited his residence for the Ganesh Chaturthi pooja sparking massive controversy last month.
