New Delhi: Former Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud came under fire from opposition leaders in the Lok Sabha Friday for inviting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to his Ganpati Puja earlier this year, and also remarking that he sat before a deity for a solution to the Ayodhya case.
Parliamentarians, including the Trinamool Congress’s Mahua Moitra and Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Arvind Ganpat Sawant, were critical of the former CJI during a debate on the Constitution, which marked the beginning of the 75th year of its adoption in the country. Modi is expected to reply to the two-day debate Saturday.
Moitra, who represents Krishnanagar in West Bengal, indirectly spoke of Chandrachud while wondering about his “legacy”, saying, “Attention-seeking divas do not leave legacies. Upholders and protectors of our basic sovereign rights will only be remembered.”
“History will not be kind to you, your lords and ladyships, if you falter. To every Chief Justice of India, past and present, I say this: ‘Yours is not to worry about your personal legacy. Yours is not to take directions from God. Yours is not to have a private family function turned into a televised circus with the political executive. The Constitution is your only God. The Constitution is the only atithi (guest) who should be in your home as your deva (god)’,” she said.
Sawant also launched a scathing attack on the judiciary, questioning its independence, and asked why judges join political parties and the Rajya Sabha after retirement.
“Sometimes I wonder if the judiciary is independent at all. Scared people are sitting there… Chandrachud sahab ne to aag laga di,” he said.
Sawant next referred to former CJI Ranjan Gogoi, who became a member of the Upper House, without explicitly naming him. “All these people think about what they will get in the future,” he said.
Uproar over remarks
Moitra also mentioned a judge whose death in 2014 had led to PILs in the Supreme Court alleging foul play. However, the court had rejected such allegations in 2018.
Her comments angered several treasury bench MPs, including BJP’s Nishikant Dubey, who demanded her remarks on Modi, CJI Chandrachud, and the judge be expunged.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju also raised objections to her remarks on the judge, stating that the case was decisively settled by the Supreme Court.
“There was no question of an intervention in this,” Rijiju said, assuring that appropriate parliamentary action would be taken.
“You cannot escape such a remark,” Rijiju further asserted. Speaker Om Birla also said he would look into the records.
Moitra’s remarks and all other references to the judge’s name were expunged later Friday night.
Days before retiring, Chandrachud also told The Indian Express that he had granted bail to A to Z — from Arnab to Zubair — when asked about courts not granting bail.
However, Moitra was quick to remark that “his alphabet (range) unfortunately, seems abbreviated because it did not include G for Gulfisha Fatima, didn’t include H for Hani Babu, didn’t include K for Khalid Safi, didn’t include S for Sharjeel Imam, and U for Umar Khalid. And countless others”.
In an apparent reference to Chandrachud’s remarks that he had sat before a deity before the Ayodhya decision, she retorted, “I do not think that the framers of our Constitution ever imagined the scenario where judges would rely on private conversations with God to write judgements rather than on objective logic, on reasoning, and on the law and the Constitution.”
She acknowledged the Emergency “was a full frontal attack on democracy”. She, however, added: “But we saw it for what it was. This government’s modus operandi has been indirect and creeping, in incremental systemic assaults for the past 10 years. The Modi government has consistently sought to erase the distinction between the party and the state, by underlining and capturing all the mechanisms that seek executive accountability.”
“It is killing our Constitution by a thousand cuts,” she said, and then went on to talk about voter disenfranchisement, the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, “bulldozer justice” by state governments, and electoral bonds.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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Corrupt politicians will never say that Indian Judiciary & Indian media are the most corrupt pillars of Indian democracy. I don’t hesitate to say that as because I have authentic evidence to show it. Ex-CJI fell on feet of authority of x.com to suspend my twitter handle as I harshly exposed his weakness to punish fraud authority of CESC Limited. Because of that dishonest Ex-CJI Chandrachud licence of CESC Limited couldn’t be revoked till now.
If Mamata Banerjee and her Cabinet is ruling over Bengal, it is all thanks to Mr. DY Chandrachud. But for him, Mamata and each of her ministers would have been rotting away in jails. The cesspool of corruption and fraud that the West Bengal government has become under the TMC administration, Mahua Moitra would do well to keep her mouth shut and be grateful to the ex-CJI instead.
In case after case – ranging from illegal cow smuggling rackets to illegal coal smuggling, sand mafia operations on riverbeds to chit fund scams, teacher’s appointments to corruption in the medical colleges – it is the ex-CJI who went out of his way to protect Mamata Banerjee and her bunch of lackeys.
Cheap intimidation tactics by opposition on current judges.
Individuals are not secular, nation states are secular. They can’t fathom the simple concept of someone meditating in front of their chosen deity when confronted with a difficult decision? Pathetic. It is behavior like this that drives even moderate Hindus away from such politicians.
Mahua Moitra should be grateful to ex-CJI Chandrachud. In case after case, where the Calcutta High Court had passed damning orders against the Bengal government, Chandrachud came to the rescue of the Mamata Banerjee administration.
All fraud, forgery, cut-money cases where the Bengal government was in the dock, the Supreme Court under Chandrachud’s leadership gave a clean chit to Mamata and her officers.
From the massive scale fraud and corruption in the teacher’s appointment to the latest RG Kar incident, but for the “effective” intervention of DY Chandrachud, Mamata Banerjee and her ministers would have been serving jail sentences.
Mahua Moitra is an extremely ungrateful person.
Mahua Moitra berated ex-CJI Chandrachud? Seriously?
Mahua is quite possibly the most attention seeking diva in the history of the Lok Sabha.
Though she now has competition from Kangana Ranaut.
Even though Ms. Apoorva Mandhani seems delighted at Mahua’s attack on Chandrachud, she should know better. Mahua Moitra does not have even an iota of integrity. Mr. Chandrachud, with all his flaws, stands head and shoulders above Ms. Moitra.