B30 Governance

THE SOUND OF SILENCE: THE LEGACY OF CHIEF JUSTICE N.V. RAMANA  Gautam Bhatia. https://thewire.in/law/cji-ramana-legacy

unlike CJI Bobde – and indeed, before him, CJI Gogoi – CJI Ramana did not indulge in the intemperate and partisan pro-state broadsides that had become something of a habit for his predecessors. However, once you strip away the rhetoric and focus on the record, it becomes easier to see the similarities -- Judicial evasion and the sound of silence

When he took over as Chief Justice in April, 2021, the following crucial constitutional cases were pending:

The constitutional challenge to electoral bonds (which allow unlimited, anonymous corporate funding of political parties) (from September 2017);
The constitutional challenge to the effective abrogation of Article370, and the splitting of the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir into two union territories (from August 6, 2019)
The constitutional challenge to EWS reservations (from January 10, 2019)
The constitutional challenge to the Aadhaar amendment ordinance (later the Act) (from July, 2019)
Judicial review over money bills (from November 13, 2019)
The constitutional challenges to the Citizenship Amendment Act (from December, 2019).

During CJI Ramana’s tenure, not one of these cases was decided:

https://article-14.com/post/lots-of-speeches-but-no-action-in-cases-of-national-importance-the-legacy-of-chief-justice-ramana-63058720be481

Other legacies:

https://indconlawphil.wordpress.com/2018/10/01/ends-without-means-outcomes-without-reasons-a-look-back-at-dipak-misra-and-the-constitution/

https://indconlawphil.wordpress.com/2019/11/17/a-little-brief-authority-chief-justice-ranjan-gogoi-and-the-rise-of-the-executive-court/

https://indconlawphil.wordpress.com/2021/04/23/evasion-hypocrisy-and-duplicity-the-legacy-of-chief-justice-bobde/

Other articles by Gautam Bhatia

https://indconlawphil.wordpress.com/2017/01/06/o-brave-new-world-the-supreme-courts-evolving-doctrine-of-constitutional-evasion/

https://www.hindustantimes.com/opinion/decoding-the-problems-with-the-freebie-debate-101660746735475.html

https://indconlawphil.wordpress.com/2022/07/29/the-executives-court-notes-on-the-legacy-of-justice-a-m-khanwilkar/

https://indconlawphil.wordpress.com/2019/10/14/the-land-acquisition-bench-and-continuing-issues-around-the-master-of-the-roster/

https://indconlawphil.wordpress.com/2022/05/02/the-upcoming-sedition-case-before-the-supreme-court-key-issues/

But as the Pegasus case and the Freebies case show (in different contexts), what is worrying is not just the inability to protect rights, but the formation of the Executive(‘s) Court that marches in lock-step with the executive, acting as both its shield and its sword. In Pegasus, the Court acted as a shield, protecting the government from accountability – from the first day of the hearing, when it refused to ask the “yes or no” question, to now, when it refused to publish the technical report of the Committee. In the Freebies case, the Court acted as the sword, amplifying – and providing judicial validation to – a debate that the political executive conjured up out of nowhere.