By Betwa Sharma
In an interview he recently gave, former Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud made specific references to the adjournments sought by jailed activist Umar Khalid, who withdrew his bail application from the Supreme Court in February 2024.
It is a craven way of minimising the fundamental injustice that took place during his tenure as chief justice: specifically, the issue that Khalid was an undertrial prisoner for more than four years in a deeply flawed case with no trial on the horizon and the principle that bail is the rule was being enforced inconsistently and arbitrarily.
The former chief justice said, “I must tell you one thing that is lost sight by many people when it comes to Umar Khalid’s case. Can you imagine the case was adjourned, there were at least seven, if not more, adjournments which were sought by the counsel appearing for Umar Khalid and eventually, the application for bail was withdrawn. What do you have to say to this?”
“Now, at the end of it, what happens is that a particular perspective is conveyed in social media and the media. Judges have no place to defend themselves, and if you look at the fine print of what happens in the court, the reality is a little more nuanced…” he said.
Indeed, Khalid’s counsel sought many adjournments, but the reason has little to do with the spin the former chief justice has tried to put on it. It had to do with the concern around his assigning several politically sensitive cases, including Khalid’s, to Justice Bela Trivedi, contrary to the assignment rules, which require the matter to be listed before the senior judge on the bench.
The first woman judge from the Gujarat High Court to be elevated to the Supreme Court, Trivedi served as the law secretary in Narendra Modi’s government when he was the chief minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014.
This story was originally published in article-14.com. Read the full story here.
