Supreme Court of India Is A Chief Justice Driven Court, That Has To Change: CJI DY Chandrachud

"I am delighted as chief justice that we are at full strength with the Addition of the last seven appointments. When I became a judge in 2000, one of my chief justices who was from the Patna High Court said you are the last on the bench of 42 judges of the Bombay High Court, as it then stood, so you are the 'Guard Babu', we call the last judge to be appointed as the 'Guard Babu'. We have 7 'Guard Babus' in the Supreme Court. But hopefully not for long because one of my mission has been to ensure that this full strength Supreme Court is not an aberration but a regular feature of the Supreme Court. There is absolutely no justification or reason for the collegium to keep even a single vacancy unfilled in the Supreme Court and that will be my mission in the future as well", expressed Chief Justice D. Y. Chandrachud on Wednesday.

‘I have always felt that the Supreme Court of India is a chief justice-driven court, that has to change’- CJI

“I have always felt that the Supreme Court of India is a chief justice-driven court, that has to change. The chief justice, in a sense, is a friend for everyone among the colleagues, some may call him the ‘primus inter pares’ which is the latin word which means first among the equals. But we do the same judicial work. I do believe that I must end this by thanking my colleagues who are there in the audience, for the work that they are doing in the Supreme Court, not just by burning the midnight oil and making sure that those SLPs are disposed off- Not dismissed but disposed off- but also in terms of upgrading the infrastructure of the Supreme Court”.

“So many of our colleagues have this diverse experience. One of the problems that I always felt that though we have such tremendous experience as judges of the High Court and as chief Justice of the High Court, when we land up here, nobody seems to ever seems to tap on that experience in the Supreme Court. We are then reduced to just being judges and nothing else and perhaps doing work which single judges of the High Court do, as in the case of grant of bail. So I thought we might change this pattern in the Supreme Court because there is enormous experience which judges of the High Court bring with them when they come to the Supreme Court which Must be tapped into because this is not a personal turf or property of the chief Justice of India”, articulated the CJI

The CJI was speaking at the SCBA-organised felicitation function for the 8 newly-appointed judges to the Supreme Court

'121 years of cumulative experience, across 13 states and 1 union territory! This gives idea of diversity, depth of experience which my 8 colleagues bring to the bench'- CJI

He proceeded to discus that these appointments which have been marked by this felicitation "reflect truly the diversity of the nation"- "Our colleagues come from diverse states- Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Himachal, Karnataka, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur, Punjab and Haryana, Rajasthan and Telangana. I am including both their parent state and the state where they have been chief Justice. 13 states and the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh- what a sense of diversity this brings to the court! I was just doing a little bit of a mathematical calculation and I had my cell phone to help me in doing that all our colleagues today have been appointed between 2006 and 2011 as judges of the High Court. If you make a sum total of their cumulative experience as judges, it comes to about 121 years, the cumulative experience, 121 years, 13 states, one union territory! This gives you an idea of the diversity and the depth of the experience which our colleagues bring to the bench. It is important to say this because very often we are criticised as the collegium and as an institution in regard to the source from which we make judicial appointments. We are criticised on the grounds that we are not diverse enough, we are not democratic enough. I ask myself a simple question- what other tribute to diversity can you have than my eight colleagues who are present today on the Dias?"

"We also have some fantastic cricket players! The lawyers better beware of the next cricket match. I was in fact delaying responding to Mr Vikas Singh' request for a cricket match because I knew we are going to get some top notch cricketers from the High Courts. We began this morning with a celebration of Justice Aniruddha Bose’s birthday. Being a judge is somewhat like being in school- you get into the class when the bell rings and you get up when the bell rings, except you don’t get up until your usher moves your chair and taps you on the back. We began this morning with a very nice chocolate and orange cake that was the organised by Justice Sanjay Kaul, he is our most imaginative morning cake provider on days of birthday, and we now end the day with a felicitation, for I am not planning to go back to the chambers this evening. What a beautiful day for all of us in our lives", said the CJ in a lighter vein

E-Filing & E-SCR

“Couple of things which I must mention that we are in the process of doing- we are substantially at an advanced stage in implementing e-filing of cases but as in all other things that I have implemented in the last five months, nothing is done by my Fiat, everything is done in consultation with the bar. Though the e-filing module is substantially designed, I won’t say it is perfect, we thought we must have awareness programmes for members of the bar so that they can look at the e-filing module, respond to us. Over the last few days, we have some wonderful suggestions and I’ve also asked the registry to invite the President of the SCBA and executive committee of the SCBA and likewise the President of SCAORA and the executive committee of SCAORA so that your suggestions can be incorporated in the e-filing module. We held a Hackathon a short while ago, we will have another Hackathon, and some worthwhile suggestions came from the member of the bar at the first-ever Hackathon held at the Supreme Court of India”.

“We have as you know put out the E-SCR which is a free service for the members of the bar. I was conscious of the fact that young lawyers may not be able to afford the subscription cost which has to be paid to any of the private reporters so we have put out the E-SCR which I request all the young junior members of the bar to use prolifically because it is a free service which is available to you. Head notes are now complete right up to 2023 and we are ensuring that we will not fall behind on head notes so please use the E-SCR”, he continued

Defibrillators, gender-neutral toilets, disability-friendly Supreme Court

“Just today, and I hope none of you have to ever use it, the defibrillators which I requested the government of Delhi to organise have come in, and we are installing defibrillators all across the most crowded areas of the Supreme Court. God forbid, if you require to resuscitate and save any member of the bar, they are going to be available. the Delhi government and the Union of India were very cooperative and they have helped in setting them up”, added the CJI.

“Justice Ravindra Bhat is carrying out a disability audit of the Supreme Court premises because we want to ensure that the Supreme Court is disability friendly, friendly for the disabled individuals. We have installed gender neutral toilets within the Supreme Court- that is one of the demands I had received that there should be gender neutral toilet as well, toilets for transgenders, so we now have that in place in the Supreme Court”

Mentioning, permanent constitution bench, specialised benches

“Every morning, I have over 100 matters which are mentioned in the chief Justice’s court. Sometimes, the figure goes up to 120. Now I learnt my own ways in how we can do that in about half an hour to 40 minutes. I was once asked is this not a waste of time for the chief justice to be spending half an hour in the first half of the day taking up mentioning matters? That is not the way I look at it and the reason why I hear these mentioning matters is very simple- I felt that it is important for us to send a message of confidence amongst members of the bar that if you have any urgent matter, your matter would be heard and listed at the earliest. Equally important, in that one half of an hour, we send a message to citizens at large that if there is something arbitrary which is being done to you, your home is being demolished or you are being subjected to an arbitrary arrest, there is someone in the country who will give you a voice immediately”, said the CJ

“Much as we are a constitutional court, and that is why we have a permanent Constitution bench that is running- that is one of my initiatives that we have adopted that we must have a Constitution bench permanently running through the year, but equally we are the court for the common citizen and it is important for us to balance the two perspectives”, added the CJ

“We have set up specialised benches. This is something which was the need of the hour. We have a bench which is dealing only with land acquisition cases, Justice Surya Kant Is heading that bench. We have a specialised bench to deal with MACT and compensation cases, Justice Bopanna is heading it. We have a specialised arbitration bench- Justice Ravindra Bhat is dealing with arbitration and indirect Tax. Justice M. R. Shah with direct tax. Justice Gavai very graciously agreed when I requested him to take up criminal appeals as well as the death references, some 26 death references which were pending. It is not a very simple task for a judge to take up death references. It is the most difficult part of the life of a judge in a way but Justice Gavai agreed very readily and said he will take up and dispose off death references. I think we must emphasise personal liberty so every bench of the Supreme Court takes up bail applications in the morning and likewise transfer petitions in the morning. I have taken up all the section 11 arbitration act matters which were pending since 2017- for five years, the section 11 matters have not been disposed off! We are down to the last less than 50 matters which are now pending”.

‘I can assure you that we will dispose off the 57,000 cases which we anticipate will be filed this year and not add to the back log this year’- CJI

“I am grateful to you for all the confidence that you have vested in us as a team of judges. Nothing can be done by the chief justice without the assistance of his colleagues. My colleagues have given me some great and unstinted cooperation over the last Five months. I thought I must share with you that since 9th of November 2022 when I took over to 11 April 2023, 22,208 cases were filed in the Supreme Court, 1,04,000 cases were listed and 22,054 cases have been disposed off. So we are only 100 cases behind schedule which we will cover up in a matter of two days. But that is also because now we are listing Wednesdays and Thursdays as regular hearing days where the progress is slower but by doing that, we are listing some of the old cases as well. To give you comparative figures, in the 11 months of 2022, 35,791 cases were filed in the Supreme Court, at the rate which we have achieved of filing between the 1st of January and 11 April, we are anticipating that the filing would have gone up to about 57,000 cases this year. As opposed to 35,000 cases which were filed last year, and these were not pandemic figures, 57,000 is what we are expecting to be filed. And I can assure you that we will dispose off 57,000 cases and not add to the back log this year”, expressed the CJ

“Every evening I get a report from the registrar general, or from the secretary general and the registrar in charge of listing, with regard to matters which are verified and how many are pending verification. On an average, 190-200 matters are verified every single day and about 195 are diarised every day”, added the CJ

Open, transparent process for recruiting law clerks; new codes for classification of cases

“I must tell you we have a Law Clerks scheme. This is not something which necessarily has something to do with the members of the bar but I would like to share a moment of reflection on this. I was rather keen that we must have an open and transparent process of recruiting law clerks because when we recruit Law clerks to assist the Supreme Court judges, we are also training lawyers for the future. That is part of our obligation of giving back to the members of the bar, just as law clerks help us in doing a little bit of research and helping with some of our speeches. But I thought it is very important that we must have law clerks from across India and not just those who are connected, who come with recommendations, not just lawyers’ children or lawyers’ relatives, we must have young lawyers who have no connection whatsoever, who come and apply as a part of the system and who are recruited. So I requested Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, my senior most Colleague, and the committee came out with a white paper based on a white paper which I spent all last summer in preparing. So we will have a new scheme, we even have an examination earlier in May. The idea of the examination is not to test the memorisation capacity of a lawyer because that is not relevant in a court, what is relevant is analytical skills. It is a 2-part examination, multiple choice questions, 300 marks. Then we are going to give two questions of over 3 1/2 hours, one question would be to prepare a brief from a mock judgment and then a research paper. Half an hour to read the exam and then two questions. And for the two questions, the answer should not exceed 750 words. So the idea is to test your analytical skills”, told the CJI

“My law clerks come from absolutely unconnected background from all over the country, none of them come from a legal family and they’re doing some brilliant work. That is part of our process of opening of the Supreme Court to citizens at large and send a message of confidence to young lawyers across the country”.

“I had constituted a committee chaired by Justice Narsimha for the classification of cases. Many of the classification codes which we had introduced since 2006 onwards have become redundant, there are no filings at all under those classifications. We need new codes for the purpose of ensuring that we can manage litigation better, assign cases to judges and dispose them off. The committee has consulted with SCBA and SCAORA. The report, Justice Narasimha tells me is almost ready. Every day when we have a cup of tea, Justice Narsimha leave a little early because he has to attend a meeting of the classification committee. Great work has been done by that committee”, told the CJI

‘We have in place data pertaining to top 50 judges in order of seniority, their judgments, number of reportable judgments; Idea is to promote sense of objectivity in the work which collegium does’- CJI

“As part of the collegium, my emphasis has been on promoting transparency in the collegium. As you all know, we put up reasons for the resolutions which we pass, whether it it is in terms of appointment of judges of the High Courts, appointment of chief Justices, transfers of judges, dealing with representations of judges. Another initiative we have taken is two dove-tail the work of the Centre for research and planning in the Supreme Court with the permanent secretariat of the Supreme Court which deals with judicial appointments. The Centre for research and planning has extraordinarily talented young people including young judicial officers who I have recruited. It is headed by an officer from the Punjab and Haryana High Court, a young Dalit student who was my former Law Clerk, who has now come back from Jindal global Law University After doing an LLM at Harvard Law school. We have a set of talented people. We have appointments which will be due in summer this year When the next set of retirement takes place in the Supreme Court. So I thought I will tell the CRP why don’t we collect data of the top 50 judges in the country. This has been never done. So we now have in place data pertaining to the top 50 judges in order of seniority, we have their judgments before us, we have the number of reportable judgments which they have delivered. The idea is to promote a sense of objectivity in the work which the collegium does. So the Centre for research and planning will now merge its activities with the permanent secretariat of the Supreme Court”, discussed the CJI

Live streaming, Translation of judgments in Indian languages, Neutral citations

“We thought we must reach out to the citizens in the language that they understand which is not English. I was the chief Justice of the Allahabad high court for three years and very often the only English which would begin and end, it was with ‘please, your lordships’ and then it would be a Hindi conversation between me and the bar and I would be very happy to do it because I thought I could reach out to the members of the bar in a language which they spoke, which they understood, which was close to their heart. So I requested Justice Abhay Oka who is heading the committee of translation of judgments, we are using artificial intelligence for translation of all judgments of the Supreme Court, there are 34,000 judgments, we’re going to do some orders as well prospectively to start with in all the Indian languages which are a recognised under the Constitution. About 4000+ judgements have already been translated. Most of them in Hindi but the other languages as well. The scheme which Justice Oka deviced was that there will be retired district judges in every High Court who will be budgeted for by the supreme court and they will verify the machine translation that is taking place under a software which has been provided by the IIT at Madras”, told the CJI

“We also implementing neutral citation, for that now when cases are cited in the Supreme Court, we should have one universal mode of citation across India. The Delhi High Court first did that, there was a committee headed by Justice Rajiv Shakdher, Kerala High Court also did that under Justice Raghavan. We have constituted a committee in the Supreme Court and we have now neutral citations in place. I must also tell you that members of the bar have wholeheartedly cooperated. Mr Aruneshwar Gupta is in the audience who gave the entire data he had for neutral citations which we have picked up and I spoke to him to thank him that he did not claim any copyright in the data. He said to me that I earn enough money at the bar to not make money on the little bit of copyright that I may have. So all in all I must tell you that the work which we are doing is a work in a collaborative capacity. I only sit there and facilitate the activities of my colleagues. I give them my ideas, they revert back to me, we share thoughts, all of them apart from doing the judicial work do this remarkable work of the court during the course of the evening”.

“We are going ahead with the live streaming as well. You know we have already started live streaming the Constitution bench hearing. In the Constitution bench which heard the Maharashtra issue we had live transcripts of the arguments that what was argued by the lawyers was was instantaneously put on the screens, at the end of the day, it was cleaned up and now we have a whole text of the arguments. We have already put out an expression of interest so we can make it a part of our system. I have constituted a committee of my own colleagues for implementing live streaming. I began by saying that these colleagues who are on the dias bring such a rich experience to the Supreme Court so I have requested those colleagues who have implemented live streaming in their own High Court to chair the committee and to work on the committee so that we can have modalities for live streaming proceedings in the Supreme Court. Justice Arvind Kumar, Justice Oka is on the committee”, said the CJ