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Former CJI DY Chandrachud Defends Supreme Court’s Article 370 Verdict in BBC Interview
In a recent interview with BBC’s Stephen Sackur on “HARDtalk,” former Chief Justice of India, DY Chandrachud, faced criticism on the Supreme Court decision to support the abrogation of Article 370 that enjoyed special status for Jammu and Kashmir. He noted that Article 370 has been the “transitional provision” of the Indian Constitution itself right from the start.
Chandrachud noted that when the Constitution was drafted, Article 370 was at one point included in a chapter entitled “Transitional Arrangements” and subsequently moved to a chapter entitled “Temporary and Transitional Provisions. For example, in this classification, the regulation was shown to aim at such full incorporation into the Constitution at some point. He posed a rhetorical question, asking whether 75 years was “too short a time to phase out a transitional provision,” suggesting that the duration was sufficient for such a transition.
Responding to concerns from legal scholars who felt the court’s decision failed to uphold the Constitution, Chandrachud explained that as the author of one of the judgments, he must exercise restraint in defending or critiquing his decisions. Once more he claimed that the masked backing of the legislative authority to abolish an enacting law by an executive body, however meant to be temporal, has received judicial recognition before the Supreme Court. With this, the court also stressed the significance of democratic reconstruction in Jammu and Kashmir, which may be seen as a deadline to restore the democratic process in the area.
The interview also discussed amongst other topics the role of the judiciary in a democracy and the importance of protecting judicial independence. Chandrachud restated that the court is no opposition in legislature, but is bound to determine cases according to the rule of law.