Farewell Speech of CJI DY Chandrachud

(8th November, 2024)

Excerpt

Well, it’s a moment today of thanksgiving. It’s a little bit of time for looking back in time. But before that, I would like to thank from the bottom of my heart, the Supreme Court Bar Association for organizing this event. And for all the beautiful words which have been said by each one of the speakers who preceded me. Brother Sanjiv Khanna, I mean, I’m really touched to the core by what you’ve said. Thank you so much, Rachna. Thank you Kapilji for these beautiful words in the poem. Thank you so much, Aji. And thank you really all of you for giving me this great honor together with my family.

On his mother

She [mother of DY Chandrachud] told me when I was born, I was growing up, that “I have named you Dhananjay, but the Dhan in your Dhananjay is not material wealth. I want you to acquire knowledge.” Like most Maharashtrian women, she was very powerful. Ours was a woman-dominated house. My mother dominated everything at home. And I think women from Oriya are in the same pattern. So, my lovely spouse Kalpana takes, calls all the shots at home, but never messes around with the judgments.

On his father

Two things which I’d like to share with you, otherwise I can go on forever about a parent, as all of us can. He bought this small house in, small flat in Pune. And I asked him, “Why on earth are you buying a flat in Pune? When are you going to go and stay there?” He told me one thing. He said, “I know I’m never going to stay there. But he said, I’m not sure how long I will be with you. But do one thing, keep this flat until the last day of your tenure as a judge.” And I said, “Why is that?” So he says, “If you feel that your moral integrity or your intellectual integrity is ever compromised, I want you to know that you have a roof over your head. Never allow, never allow, never allow yourself to be compromised, either as a lawyer or as a judge, because you have no place of your own.”

On judgeship

When you become a judge, the first thing that you come face to face with are your own fears, because as lawyers, we can decide what cases to accept and what cases not to accept. Of course, occasionally judges can recuse, but you can’t recuse every evening. The lawyer can say that, well, I am busy in a part heard before another bench.

You have to take up everything which is dished out into your daily work under the roster prepared by the Chief Justice. And I was confronted with my own fears because I was predominantly a public lawyer, a public law lawyer. And then suddenly I was catapulted into a situation where my first sitting after 11 years as a judge on the division bench was to head the tax bench. I had done a little bit of tax work when I was the Additional Solicitor General of India between 1998 and 2000.

[…] I had no clue about how to deal with commercial work.

But that’s when you learn to be humble, because you learn the limits of your own knowledge as a judge, and how vast knowledge is, and you realize the importance of the bar in educating you. If we just step back and allow a little bit more time to the member of the bar who is arguing before you, you realize the importance of being patient, because you realize the limits of your own knowledge and the enrichment which you receive as a judge by just allowing different people speak. It may appear to be utterly irrelevant, but in that irrelevance sometimes you realize that there is some human story which is unfolding before you.

On District Judiciary

But I learnt from my colleagues who are drawn from the district judiciary what a wealth of experience they had about the law actually in motion, because they had come face to face. They had come face to face with trial actions. They had an understanding about witnesses. They had an understanding about what our society is about, because as you go higher and higher into the judiciary, you become separated from and isolated from the real strata of society for whom you are intended to do justice. And I learnt so much from our colleagues who are drawn from the district judiciary. Many of them worked as registrar vigilance or registrar legal or different wings of the High Court and then came to the High Court. And to them I have a great debt of gratitude.

Healing through hearing

In the court you realise that you cannot cure every injustice which comes into your plate every day as a judge. Some injustices are within the realm of the rule of law, other injustices are beyond what the rule of law can lead a judge to a solution. Because we are not knight-errants, as the Supreme Court once called a very distinguished Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court. We are not knight-errants, we are governed by law.

But you realise that the healing in a court lies in your ability to hear. Your healing in court does not lie in your ability to grant relief. Lawyers know where the balance of a matter lies. Most lawyers accept that this is a difficult case. If they succeed, they are happy because probably the judge blinked a little bit or hadn’t read the brief as well as the judge should have. But these are some of the learning lessons of life which I have learnt.

Bar and the Bench

My shoulders are broad enough to accept all the criticism that we have faced. The Bar has responded with tremendous support in all the initiatives which we have taken. My colleagues have responded with tremendous support in all the initiatives which we have taken towards making our courts paperless. The Chief Justice can shout from the rooftops, but if the lawyers don’t support the Chief and the colleagues don’t support the Chief, nothing can happen.

I found when I became a judge of the Supreme Court that this was a Chief Justice centric court. In the High Courts it’s completely different. The High Court works through committees. The Supreme Court is a Chief Justice centric court. The registry looks to one person, the Chief Justice. I thought that had to change. I experimented with constituting committees and my experience was remarkable.

On tackling pendency of cases during tenure

We decided to put the data of all pending cases on the public domain, all cases whether registered or unregistered. At the time when I took over as the Chief Justice, I found that there were close to 1500 files which had been stashed up in the cupboard of a registrar. I said this has to change. Every case which enters the system has to be tagged with a number.

Now I will give you some figures which will tell you the kind of work which all the colleagues in the Supreme Court have done. Between 9th of November 2022 and 1st of November 2024, 1,11,000 cases were filed. 5,33,000 cases were listed and 1,07,000 cases were disposed off. Now you have probably read somewhere that the pendency of the Supreme Court has gone up to 82,000 cases. I want to tell you the raw data and what the truth of the matter is.

Before as I said 2022, cases which were defective, which were unregistered were never put on the public domain. They were never accounted for. On 1st of January 2020, 79,500 cases were pending before the Supreme Court including what we now call as the unregistered or the defective cases. That number on 1st of January 2022 went up to 93,000 cases. On 1st of January 2024, the number has come down to 82,000 cases. So what the 82,000 cases which are pending does not tell you is that this number includes both the registered and the unregistered cases and the number has decreased in the course of two years by over 11,000 cases.

But look at the kind of support which the bar has given us by the number of cases you have filed. That shows the sense of faith which you and the public have in us. In 2020, 29,000 cases were filed in the Supreme Court. In 2023, 54,000 cases were filed in the Supreme Court. In 2024, I have taken the figures as of the beginning of this month and extrapolated them to the end of the year. About 60,000 cases will be filed in the Supreme Court. So, the filing has doubled in the course of two years before the Supreme Court from 29,000 to 60,000 cases.

My colleagues, 28,682 regular cases were pending in November 2022. Today, 22,000 regular cases are pending. Why? Because on Wednesdays and Thursdays, every bench of the Supreme Court has put their heads down and disposed off old cases with your support as a bar. If you ask for adjournments, what would a judge do? But you argued those cases. 21,000 bail cases have been filed over this period of two years. 21,358 bail cases have been disposed off by my colleagues.

In conclusion

As the famous quote goes, when our memories outweigh our dreams, we have grown old. I hope I continue dreaming about the smaller things in life from now. Every person who has had a leadership role in an institution tends to feel after me what? The deluge and how untrue it is. There is never a deluge. Institutions are resilient and they continue. But I leave the institution of the Supreme Court in the confidence and the steadfast confidence, after having worked with Brother Sanjeev for such a long time, that this court is in solid, stable and erudite hands.