logo
Won't take up any official post after retirement from CJI post: Khanna

Won't take up any official post after retirement from CJI post: Khanna

After the conclusion of the ceremonial bench proceedings, the CJI met journalists in the apex court premises and said, I will not accept any post-retirement post...perhaps will do something with law
Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna on Tuesday said though he wasn't going to accept any post-retirement official assignments, he would continue his innings in law.
Justice Khanna, who was elevated to the top court in January 18, 2029, was appointed as the CJI on November 11, 2024 and would be demitting office on Tuesday.
After the conclusion of the ceremonial bench proceedings, the CJI met journalists in the apex court premises and said, I will not accept any post-retirement post ... .perhaps will do something with law.
Many former apex court judges begin their innings in arbitration post judgeship.
I will have a third innings and will do something related to law, the CJI said.
Responding to a query related to the cash discovery controversy involving high court judge Justice Yashwant Vermam, he said, Judicial thinking has to be decisive and adjudicatory.
He added, We see plus and minus points and decide the issue, then rationally we weigh various factors that help us to make a right decision.
The CJI dealt with the cash row controversy following a news report, prompting him to take several steps, including a preliminary inquiry by Delhi High Court Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya, judicial work being taken away from Justice Varma in the Delhi High Court, and later his transfer to the Allahabad High Court sans judicial work.
After the in-house inquiry panel indicted the judge, the CJI nudged him to resign and later wrote to President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi after Justice Varma refused to tender resignation.
On May 10, CJI-designate Justice B R Gavai also said no to any post-retirement assignments.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

HC orders restoration ofpower at SP MP's house
HC orders restoration ofpower at SP MP's house

Time of India

timean hour ago

  • Time of India

HC orders restoration ofpower at SP MP's house

Prayagraj: The Allahabad High Court has directed to restore the electricity connection at the residence of Samajwadi Party MP of Sambhal Zia Ur Rehman Barq which was disconnected in Dec 2024. Passing above directions to Paschimanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Limited, the court also stayed the final assessment order imposing on him electricity charges of Rs. 1.91 crores for a period of 4,138 days upon the allegation of unauthorised use of electricity. Hearing a writ petition filed by Zia Ur Rehman, a division bench, comprising Justice Saumitra Dayal Singh and Justice Sandeep Jain fixed July 2 for the next hearing of the case. Barq had moved the HC against the assessment order on the ground that the same was passed entirely without jurisdiction as it imposed an assessment for over 12 years, when Section 126(5) of the Electricity Act only allowed imposition of charges for a maximum of 12 months in cases where the period of unauthorized usage was non-determinable. It was also contended that the final assessment order also demanded payment of electricity duty and compounding charges, which the authority had no jurisdiction to impose. Apart from above, it was also argued that by breaching the statutory period of assessment, an arbitrary demand of Rs 1.91 crore had been raised and that the petitioner cannot be made to deposit 50% of such illegal demand to maintain an appeal. Fixing July, 2, 2025, for next hearing, the court in its order dated June 4 stayed the final assessment subject to the petitioner depositing Rs 6 lakh within two weeks. It also directed the restoration of the electricity connection of the petitioner, subject to the timely payment of future bills. As per the statement of executive engineer, UPPCL in Sambhal, two meters at Barq's residence were found showing zero readings for the last six months and the units consumed did not exceed 100 in any of the remaining months last year. However, during the inspection, it was allegedly found that electricity consumption in his house exceeded 16 kilowatts daily, despite the sanctioned connection being only 4 kilowatts.

Democracy without dissent a contradiction: Justice Surya Kant
Democracy without dissent a contradiction: Justice Surya Kant

Hindustan Times

time3 hours ago

  • Hindustan Times

Democracy without dissent a contradiction: Justice Surya Kant

Democracy without dissent is a contradiction and that silence in the face of injustice is not neutrality, but complicity, Supreme Court judge justice Surya Kant has asserted as he invoked India's constitutional ethos and the top court's role in defending civil liberties. Justice Kant, who is in line to take over as the Chief Justice of India (CJI) in November this year, was speaking at the Washington Supreme Court as part of an international judicial exchange. In his address earlier this week that underscored the shared constitutional commitments of India and the United States, the judge said: 'Democracy without dissent is a contradiction, and that silence in the face of injustice is not neutrality, but complicity…These are not merely legal precedents; they are constitutional declarations.' Justice Kant highlighted that the right to free speech, protected under Article 19(1)(a) of the Indian Constitution and the First Amendment in the US, has been 'zealously defended' by courts on both sides of the Atlantic. Drawing parallels with the US Supreme Court's protection of student protest in Tinker Vs Des Moines (1969), he recalled how India's top court, much earlier, had established the primacy of expression in Romesh Thappar and Brij Bhushan cases in 1950, ruling against pre-censorship and vague notions of public order. 'In both countries, the judiciary has consistently pushed back against the temptation to suppress dissent under misguided and deceptive notions that the executive may hold,' he noted. Reaffirming the foundational nature of constitutional supremacy in both democracies, Justice Kant highlighted that the basic structure doctrine in India that asserts Parliament cannot amend away core constitutional values mirrors the American principle that 'even the majoritarian will must bow' before foundational ideals like liberty, federalism, and equality. 'These doctrines reflect a shared understanding that tampering with these principles would cause a rift so immense that it would threaten the very heart of our existence,' he warned. ALSO READ | Free speech, democracy, and the epidemic of hurt feelings Justice Kant also spotlighted India's global leadership in using public interest litigation (PIL) as a judicial tool to redress collective harm. Citing the Vishaka judgment (1997) where the Indian Supreme Court laid down workplace sexual harassment guidelines in the absence of legislation, he said: 'Though structurally distinct, both approaches reflect a shared judicial philosophy: that justice must not be confined to individual litigants but must be responsive to collective harm and systemic failure.' In contrast, he acknowledged the role of class action lawsuits in the US, such as Lois Jenson Vs Eveleth Taconite Co (1993), where female workers collectively challenged workplace abuse. Addressing the evolution of due process jurisprudence, Justice Kant recalled how the Indian Constitution initially adopted 'procedure established by law' over the American-style 'due process,' but eventually evolved the latter through judicial interpretation. 'In the seminal Maneka Gandhi case (1978), the Indian Supreme Court read into the phrase the requirements of justice, fairness, and reasonableness -- effectively harmonizing our doctrine with the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,' he added. Justice Kant concluded his address on a note of judicial kinship, stating: 'It is my firm belief that our countries, and our legal systems, share a kindred spirit rooted in the pursuit of justice, liberty, and the rule of law… The law must be a shield for the weak, not a sword for the powerful.'

Judicial sensitivity to sentiments is a sign of regression
Judicial sensitivity to sentiments is a sign of regression

The Hindu

time6 hours ago

  • The Hindu

Judicial sensitivity to sentiments is a sign of regression

Indian courts today are not defending free speech. They are managing it. And in this curious inversion of constitutional values, we are witnessing a quiet retreat from the principle that animated Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution: that speech, even provocative, offensive, or unsettling, is the citizen's shield against tyranny — not its tool. Once envisioned as the counter-majoritarian bulwark of our democracy, the judiciary now increasingly resembles an arbiter of decorum, demanding apologies and deference in the name of civility, sensitivity, or national pride. But when courts focus on what was said rather than why the right to say it must be protected, the Republic is left vulnerable to a new tyranny: that of sentiment, outrage, and the lowest tolerance denominator. Let us begin with a chillingly ordinary example: a social media post by a 24-year-old man criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi. after the ceasefire with Pakistan following Operation Sindoor in May 2025. Was this tasteless? Perhaps. But taste is not a constitutional metric. The Allahabad High Court thought otherwise. In rejecting the plea to quash the first information report (FIR), the Bench declared that 'emotions cannot be permitted to overflow to an extent that constitutional authorities of the country are dragged into disrepute'. That is a remarkable formulation. It subtly inverts the constitutional design: the citizen is no longer the source of power holding the state to account, but a child to be reprimanded for speaking too freely. A validation of outrage Instead of interpreting Article 19(1)(a) as a liberty that limits state power, courts have begun treating it as a licence that comes with behavioural conditions — conditions defined not by law but by the perceived dignity of public figures and institutions. Take the Kamal Haasan controversy in connection with his film, Thug Life. The actor made a remark about Kannada being a daughter of Tamil. The Karnataka High Court responded not by evaluating whether the actor's statement met the threshold of incitement, defamation, or hate, but by advising him to apologise to the 'sentiments of the masses'. This advice is corrosive. When courts suggest apologies for lawful speech, they set a precedent that expression must pass a popularity test. They validate the very outrage that threatens free speech, rather than shielding expression from it. An apology does not close the loop but only widens it, inviting further claims of offence. In Ranveer Gautam Allahabadia vs Union Of India, the 'digital content creator and podcaster' was confronted with judicial comments bordering on cultural supervision for his use of explicit language in a podcast. The court directed the Union to clarify whether such 'vulgar' language fell outside constitutional protection. Here again, the concern was not whether the speech incited harm, but on whether it offended prevailing norms of taste and modesty — a dangerously subjective threshold. Similarly, historian and a professor, Ali Khan Mahmudabad, was dragged into proceedings after sharing critical views on the optics of India using a woman soldier to explain its war situation with Pakistan. The argument was that his comments hurt sentiments. That it even reached court underscores the problem: invoking hurt feelings is now sufficient to invite judicial scrutiny of constitutionally protected speech. The professor's scholarly critique became a matter for judicial assessment and a special investigation to assess whether there was any dog whistle intent that played on the fragility of the audience. A misreading Two disturbing patterns emerge from these cases. First, the judiciary is increasingly equating speech that provokes emotional reactions with legally actionable harm. This misreads the Constitution and the rationale of a democracy. The test for restricting speech under Article 19(2) is not whether it angers, irritates, or offends but whether it incites violence, hatred or disrupts public order. Second, by encouraging apologies and moral policing of language, courts create a perverse incentive. The more outrage a comment generates, the more likely it is to be litigated. This does not protect society. It emboldens mobs and serial litigants. It creates a market for offence. This shift is starkly evident in cases that involve the armed forces. In a recent judgment, the Allahabad High Court denied the Leader of the Opposition, Rahul Gandhi, relief in a defamation case on his alleged derogatory remarks about the Indian Army . The High Court said that the freedom of speech does not include the freedom to 'defame' the military. But defamation, as a legal standard, must be carefully assessed particularly when invoked by or on behalf of state institutions by busy-bodies. Likewise, in a previous first information report against a man using the word 'coward' to describe the Prime Minister after the recent military stand-down, the court saw no issue with Sections 152 and 353(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita being invoked — laws meant for threats to sovereignty and public mischief . These laws, meant for sedition-like scenarios, are being contorted to punish sarcasm and satire. It is telling that courts will routinely deny the quashing of FIRs in such cases, claiming that it is too early to interfere and that police investigations must run their course. But this abdication is neither neutral nor passive. For the citizen facing criminal prosecution, the process itself is the punishment. The system does not need a conviction to chill speech. A summons and a charge sheet do the job. The Madras High Court has occasionally resisted this drift. But this was more about narrative correction than structural protection of speech. Courts in India must return to a principle-centric model of speech protection. Instead of obsessing over what was said, they must ask whether the speaker's right was violated, and not someone else's sentiment. Apologies should not be judicial recommendations. They should be individual choices. Otherwise, courts become confessional booths where speech is absolved not by legal reasoning but by remorse. And remorse demanded is remorse devalued — it empowers the outraged, not the rational. The signal to the citizen Moreover, as long as laws such as sedition or the ever-morphing public order clauses remain vague, courts must lean toward liberty. The doctrine of 'chilling effect' that is robust in American and European jurisprudence, has been acknowledged in India's courts but seldom enforced with spine. This is not just about high-profile speech or celebrities. It is about the slow attrition of constitutional confidence. When a YouTuber is told to bleep a joke, or a professor is dragged to court for a tweet, or a film-maker is told to grovel for linguistic pride the signal to the ordinary citizen is clear: express only what is safe, bland and agreeable. But democracies are not built on agreeable speech. They thrive on disagreement — noisy, rude, even reckless at times. The test of a society's strength is not how well it tolerates politeness, but how it handles provocation. Free speech is not just about giving offence, but about withstanding it. If India is to preserve its democratic soul, it must restore the dignity of dissent. It must not demand the dignity of institutions at the cost of liberty. Judges are the guardians of the Constitution, and not the curators of culture. They must protect the right to speak and not the comfort of the listener. Because when speech is chilled in courtrooms, freedom dies not with a bang, but with a sigh of deference. The new age of judicial sensitivity to sentiments is not a sign of progress. It is a sign of regression. It confuses harmony with homogeneity, and respect with restraint. Apologies should never be a legal strategy. And speech should not need blessings to be legitimate. Let our courts not forget that the Republic was not born from politeness but from protest. The Constitution came from the pen of a Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, who also wrote, '…the world owes much to rebels who would dare to argue in the face of the pontiff and insist that he is not infallible'. Sanjay Hegde is a Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court of India

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store