In several cases recently, the SC rulings have favoured the government. There are a number of such examples.
By Pradeep Baisakh
Be you ever so high, the law is above you! This is an established judicial principle across the world, which has also been upheld by the Indian judiciary. The credibility of Indian judiciary has generally been quite high. If a common person faces wrath of the executive, s/he always has the trust in the judiciary, which would safeguard her/his fundamental rights. However, in recent years if one analyses the rulings or silence of the Supreme Court and High Courts in politically sensitive cases, one could well sense an erosion of their credibility.
Two recent cases relating to the High Court judges have shaken the conscience of the country. One is the case where burnt cash was found in the official residence of Justice Yashwant Varma of Delhi High Court (HC) on March 14, 2025 and the other is the alleged use of derogatory remark against a minority community by Justice Shekhar Kumar Yadav of Allahabad High Court on December 8, 2024. While it would be unfair to make any conclusion in the case of Justice Varma till the inquiry by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) appointed in-house committee is over and findings are out, the case of Justice Yadav is rather a clear case of breach of judicial integrity. CJI Sanjiv Khanna has also initiated an in-house inquiry into the allegations on Justice Yadav, but no one know what is happening to it, as it is not in the public domain. He is still on the bench though his role has been limited to hearing only first appeals from orders of a civil court which were filed up to 2010.
Since the days of former CJI Deepak Mishra, there has been increasing criticism of the highest court. In an unprecedented move, four senior-most Supreme Court (SC) judges after the CJI held a press conference in January 2018 alleging that CJI Deepak Mishra, being the master of the roster, was assigning cases having far-reaching consequences to the nation to his preferred benches headed by junior judges bypassing the senior judges. This, for the first time in recent years, exposed that something is grossly wrong in the functioning of the highest court. In several cases recently, the SC rulings have favoured the government. For example, the top court dismissed the petitions seeking investigation to the controversial Rafael deal in 2018. In the Pegasus snooping case, the SC’s technical committee did not find any conclusive evidence on the presence of Pegasus spyware (2022) on mobile phones of certain individuals and then the matter was put into cold storage till recently when the Court agreed to hear the case on April 22, 2025 only after a US court ruling (December 2024) that found an Israeli company had secretly installed Pegasus spyware on mobile phones. The then CJI N V Ramana-led bench observed that the government did not cooperate with the technical committee, but it was helpless to do anything on it! One can go on counting such cases!
Verdicts on Maharashtra government and survey of Gyanvapi mosque
In June 2022 the Uddhav Thackeray government fell in Maharashtra due to the defection of some Shiv Sena MLAs led by Eknath Shinde, who eventually became the Chief Minister in a coalition government with BJP. In a rather half-baked judgement in May 2023, the bench led by D Y Chandrachud ruled the appointment of Shinde as the legislative party leader was illegal, but did not restore the Thackeray government and left the decision on disqualification of the rebel MLAs to the Speaker, who ultimately ruled in favour of Shinde, for obvious reasons. The top court chose not to take up the case challenging the Speaker’s decision and thus allowed an illegal government to continue till the next Assembly election in November 2024 – almost for two years and three months!
In the judgement on Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid in Ayodhya case (July 2020), while ruling in favour of Hindus, the five-member SC bench headed by then CJI Ranjan Gogoi, where D Y Chandrachud was also a member, also ruled that this judgement cannot be taken as a precedent for raking up similar disputes afterwards and reiterated the importance of the Places of Worship Act that prohibits the conversion of a place of worship of a particular religion to another religion or one sect to another sect in same religion. It also underlined the legal bar on any attempt to alter its religious character as it existed on August 15, 1947. It essentially meant that the status quo of religious structures as they stood on August 15, 1947, would be maintained, irrespective of any temple-mosque dispute or similar inter-religious dispute over places of worship as may have arisen due to historical reasons. This part of the judgement was expected to put any further temple-mosque dispute to rest. Unfortunately, it did not happen!
Hearing an appeal in August 2023 against the Allahabad High Court order to conduct a survey of the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi by the ASI to find if it was built over a temple, the bench led by D Y Chandrachud allowed the survey to take place instead of stopping it. The bench, dwelling on a very narrow technical interpretation, actually ruled contrary to the spirit of the SC’s Ayodhya judgement. This order literally opened the Pandora’s box leading to a wave of petitions filed by different individuals and groups in the lower courts across the country demanding similar surveys to find out if a mosque was built over a temple. This led to heightened communal tension across the country. Violence also took place in Sambhal during the survey of a mosque in November 2024.
Secularism is a basic feature of the Constitution which must be guarded by the courts.
It was only in December 2024 when the SC bench headed by current CJI Sanjiv Khanna directed to halt any such survey of religious structures until the SC bench decides on the Places of Worship Act, that the country heaved a sigh of relief!
No urgency shown in election related cases
Evidences of discrepancies have been found between votes polled and votes counted by credible independent agency like the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) in as many as 538 Lok Sabha constituencies in 2024 general elections. And there are several media reports on alleged voter list manipulation and manipulation of the EVMs in subsequent Assembly elections in Haryana (October 2024), Maharashtra (November 2024) and Delhi (February 2025). Several election related petitions have been filed in the High Courts relating to the Lok Sabha election and the state elections. Leave aside the researchers and opposition parties, even common people publicly expressed doubt over some election results in Maharashtra! This is a huge matter of concern relating to the very survival of democracy, but the courts have not lived up to expectations.
However, in an election-related case, the Punjab and Haryana High Court on December 9, 2024 ordered the Election Commission of India to provide all the documents, including videography and CCTV footage of the Haryana Assembly election to the petitioner. A central government amendment to the Conduct of Election Rules immediately followed on December 21, 2024, after a recommendation by the Election Commission, restricting public access to the CCTV footage and videography of the elections. This was understandably done to make the HC ruling ineffective!
In another case, a petition seeking re-election in 20 Haryana Assembly election seats, alleging EVM manipulation was dismissed by the then CJI D Y Chandrachud in October 2025 with a warning to the petitioner!
On February 11, 2025 the Supreme Court has directed the Election Commission not to erase any data while hearing a petition by the Association for Democratic Reforms in an EVM-related case.
These are a few rulings of the courts – both encouraging and discouraging. Overall, except for some knee-jerk responses, a sense of urgency by the courts in addressing doubts about the election process is clearly missing. This is more so when the impartiality of the Election Commission of India is under severe doubt. When common people have doubts over the election process and results, the courts should have swiftly acted on such cases to restore their trust.
Bulldozer justice continues violating SC order
Of late, the SC woke up to end the ‘Bulldozer justice’ enforced by the government authorities in Uttar Pradesh and in some other BJP-ruled states understandably targeting a particular community, by laying down detailed guidelines in November 2024 to be followed by the authorities before razing anyone’s house. However, in Nagpur in March 2025, flouting the top court’s order, bulldozers razed a person’s house till the Bombay HC order restrained it! This gives a sense on how the governments are taking the top court order for granted!
Signs of hope
It is pertinent to mention two recent Supreme Court decisions/judgements that have a far-reaching positive impact.
The recent decision by the SC judges to declare their assets is quite a welcome step to strengthen judicial transparency.
In a landmark judgement delivered by the Supreme Court on April 8, 2025, it slammed the Tamil Nadu Governor R N Ravi for not acting bona fide and set aside the Governor’s reservation of 10 bills passed by the Tamil Nadu Assembly to the President. The judgment also sets a timeline for the Governor to act upon a bill passed by the Assembly. It also set a timeline of 3 months for the President of India to act on the state bills referred to her/him by a Governor and recommended that the President should seek the advice of the Supreme Court under Article 143 on a state bill on the grounds of perceived unconstitutionality. Such a strong judgment on key federal questions is likely to restore people’s faith in the judiciary!
Pradeep Baisakh is a senior journalist. Email: [email protected]
