‘Speak to your CJ if you have a quibble over any decision’: Chandrachud advices judges

If an individual judge has a certain “quibble” over an issue in the concerned court, the “correct thing” to do would be to have a conversation with the concerned chief justice rather than making the information public, former chief justice of India DY Chandrachud said on Friday.

Speaking at the ‘Vidhi Utsav’ in New Delhi, Chandrachud said intuitions cannot function “efficiently” unless there is a certain well laid down procedure which adds to certainty, objectivity and transparency.

“Speaking for myself, I feel if an individual judge in the institution has a certain quibble about a particular decision, the correct thing would be to go to the CJ and have a conversation. Laying it up for public dialogue, perhaps, detracts from the value of institutional roles. So, if one has an issue the best thing is to talk to the CJ,” the former CJI said.

He said there are different judges with different methodologies of working, but there needs to be uniformity, as the Bar always expects it. “A particular high court has, say, 35-40 benches, and if you have 40 different procedural modalities which are followed, there will be chaos. And therefore, when it is said that the CJ is the ‘master of the roster’ – the power of any CJ to form benches and assign cases – which is a highly debated phrase in today’s time. The purpose is to bring a degree of uniformity. Because intuitions otherwise cannot function efficiently, unless there is a certain well laid down procedure which adds to certainty, objectivity, transparency–whether it is the terms of creating the roaster, the procedure which needs to be followed, or in terms of practicing directions,” he said.

The former CJI further said that “very often” even judges with integrity tend to believe that they are the last word of the integrity of the system. On the contrary, he noted, the system survives on the “integrity of the collective body of the people”, adding that training judges is crucial as the past imbibed knowledge remains inadequate to handle present challenges.

“You are not capable of handling the challenges of the present purely based on what one has received in the past learning… The nature of communication itself has evolved with the social media… It is important for judges as an institution builder to have a feel for what is happening in social reality. The young in the society are constantly aspiring for change within, and judges ought not be left behind with respect to that change and expectations that are generated in society,” he said.

Chandrachud was appointed as a judge in the Supreme Court in 2016 and served as the 50th CJI from November 2022 to November 2024.