A group of 56 former justices accused another group of legal luminaries of misusing the cover of judicial independence for political convenience. The latter had criticised Amit Shah's 'misinterpretation' of the Salwa Judum judgement.
Published Aug 27, 2025 | 10:34 PM ⚊ Updated Aug 27, 2025 | 10:39 PM
(From L) P Sathasivam, Amit Shah, Ranjan Gogoi, J Chelameshwar, and B Sudershan Reddy. (X, Wikimedia Commons)
Synopsis: Two days after a group of 18 retired judges, including eight from the Supreme Court, wrote to the Union Home Minister, Amit Shah, deploring his “misinterpretation” of the Supreme Court judgement in the Salwa Judum case, another larger group of 56 former judges came out with a joint statement, indirectly supporting the BJP leader.
The sudden resignation of Jagdeep Dhankhar as the Vice-President on 21 July 2025 seems to have led to an unforeseen divisive development in the Indian judiciary.
Two days after a group of 18 retired judges, including eight from the Supreme Court, wrote to the Union Home Minister, Amit Shah, deploring his “misinterpretation” of the Supreme Court judgement in the Salwa Judum case, another larger group of 56 former judges came out with a joint statement, indirectly supporting the BJP leader.
Shah, on 22 August, made the statement in Kerala, targeting Justice (Retd) B Sudershan Reddy, the Opposition INDIA bloc’s candidate for the 9 September vice-presidential election, necessitated by Dhankhar’s resignation.
Justice Reddy, as a Supreme Court judge, had led the bench that declared Salwa Judum, a state-backed anti-Maoist militia movement in Chhattisgarh, unconstitutional and in breach of human rights on 5 July 2011.
The Home Minister used this judgement to accuse Reddy of “supporting Maoism”, and the group of 18 former judges questioned Shah.
In the latest statement, the group of 56 (G-56) accused the smaller group (G-18) of misusing the cover of judicial independence for political convenience.
“This has become a predictable pattern where every major political development is met with statements from the same quarters. These statements are determined to cloak their political partisanship under the language of judicial independence,” the statement released on Wednesday, 27 August, alleged.
“This practice does a greater disservice to the institution we once served, as it projects judges as political actors,” the statement added.
Notable signatories of the joint statement against G-18 included former Chief Justices of India P Sathasivam and Ranjan Gogoi. The NDA government had made Justice Sathasivam, who retired as the Chief Justice on 26 April 2014, the Governor of Kerala in August the same year, and he took charge on 5 September 2014.
Justice Sathasivam was the NDA’s first gubernatorial appointment in Kerala. He took over from Sheila Dikshit.
Another signatory, Gogoi, retired as the Chief Justice of India on 17 November 2019 and was nominated to the Rajya Sabha. He took the oath as an MP on 17 March 2020. Earlier, he faced a charge of sexual misconduct, and a probe absolved him of any wrongdoing.
Incidentally, neither of the two former chief justices had a cooling-off period after their retirement before the NDA government granted them new assignments, this time, political.
In the joint statement of G-56, including former CJIs Sathasivam and Gogoi, the sentence, “These statements are determined to cloak their political partisanship under the language of judicial independence,” stood out.
Gogoi was one among the four Supreme Court judges who held an unprecedented news conference on 12 January 2018, raising issues that were plaguing the court, including the allocation of cases. The justices told reporters that they were forced to convene the news conference following the allocation of the Justice BH Loya death case to Justice Arun Mishra.
Justice Loya, the CBI judge, was hearing the Sihrabbudin Sheikh case in which police officers and Amit Shah were named. It was alleged that the BJP leaders, including Shah, ordered the murder of Sheikh.
Justice Loya died of cardiac arrest on 1 December 2014 at the age of 47. He had directed Shah to appear in person in the court on 15 December. In an interview with the Caravan magazine in 2016, his family raised concerns over his death.
Besides Gogoi, Justices Jasti Chelameshwar, Madan B. Lokur and Kurian Joseph attended the news conference and accused the then-Chief Justice Dipak Mishra of assigning cases based on his personal preferences. The Justice Loya death case was assigned to a junior judge, Justice Arun Kumar Mishra, who later recused.
Interestingly, among those justices who had held the news conference, Chelameshwar, Madan Lokur, and Kurien Joseph were among the G-18 that flayed Shah’s remarks against Justice Reddy, the INDIA bloc candidate.
They observed that prejudicial interpretation of a judgement of the Supreme Court by a high political functionary “is likely to have a chilling effect on the serving judges of the apex court, shaking the independence of the judiciary.
The signatories felt that criticising the so-called ideology of either candidate should be eschewed, and it would be wise to refrain from name-calling out of respect for the office of the Vice President of India.
Barring Gogoi, other justices at the news conference had not taken up any NDA appointments or nominations after retirement.
