Consensus Baseline
The facts every account agrees on.
Former Supreme Court judge Sanjay Kishan Kaul has written a memoir, Without Fear or Favour, which has not yet been published. In it he calls former Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud "too deferential to the government" in appointment matters. He describes a Collegium meeting to fill Supreme Court vacancies, where five names had been agreed when Chandrachud proposed a sixth at the last minute and asked whether he should telephone the government for its view. Kaul says the sixth name was not accepted. He repeated the account in an interview with Karan Thapar for The Wire. The Congress says the memoir raises serious questions about judicial independence. Chandrachud says he cannot respond in detail without reading the book, and that the Collegium's recommendations were unanimous.
Disputed Claims
The points the accounts contradict each other on.
The numbers are the accounts this piece is built from, listed in full at the foot of the page. Tap one to jump to it.
Chandrachud sought the government's approval for names before the Collegium deliberated.
Kaul calls the practice 'pre-approval' and says names were discussed with the government in advance, before and after Chandrachud's tenure. On the sixth name he says Chandrachud may already have obtained approval, which is a possibility rather than a finding. Chandrachud says judges held informal and formal discussions before names were considered, and, according to LawChakra, that the government has a legitimate role in appointments.
Kaul disagreed with the Collegium's recommendations.
Chandrachud says Kaul never recorded a dissent from any recommendation. Kaul's account concerns an objection before a meeting to a name that, by his telling, did not go through.
The memoir shows government interference in the Supreme Court.
The Congress alleges interference in appointments and day-to-day functioning, and The Leaflet's columnist reads it as erosion of judicial independence. The Hans India analysis says the account is one judge's recollection, does not show any ruling was bent, and shows the Collegium's internal checks working.
Perspectives
How each account frames the same story.
Consultation or Pre-Approval
Kaul's own account: his objection is to when the government is consulted, not whether it is.
"The Chief Justice drew me aside into a separate room and wondered aloud whether he should telephone out to check the government's view," Kaul writes. He told Thapar the sixth name was "not acceptable to me and will not be acceptable", and that the other members would not accept it either. "There is a difference between consultation and what I came to regard as pre-approval, seeking the government's nod before the collegium had even formally deliberated," the memoir says. His argument is about precedent. A Chief Justice with a two-year tenure who consults in advance, he said, leaves successors with shorter terms little room to stop, and the government grows used to the method. He is careful about motive: "I don't think it was a question of pleasing the government." He praised Chandrachud's judicial ability, and said the practice had been happening "before and after" him. He also objects that the judges' appointments matter and a PMLA reconsideration case were moved away from benches he headed.
The Record Shows Unanimity
Chandrachud's reply rests on the Collegium's published record and on the government's formal place in the process.
"Unless I read his observations and understand the context in which they were made, I would not be in a position to offer a detailed response," Chandrachud said, according to the Hindustan Times as reported by The Daily Jagran. He pointed to the Collegium's resolutions and reasons, which are published on the Supreme Court website. They show, he said, that all decisions were unanimous, and that Kaul never recorded a dissent from any recommendation. "Judges held multiple rounds of informal and formal discussions before names were officially considered and recommendations sent to the government," he said. LawChakra reports that he described his Collegium meetings with Kaul as respectful, and said the government has a legitimate role in appointments and remains in dialogue with the Chief Justice. Separately, at a medical college event before the reply, he warned that "everybody wants to bring down every institution in democracy". LawChakra notes that the speech did not refer to the memoir.
A Question of Independence
The opposition and some commentators read the memoir as evidence that the executive has too much say over the court.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh, writing in Hindi on X, cited "government interference in the appointment of judges" and "the government's absurd questioning regarding the caste of a judge belonging to a minority community". Of the PMLA case moved from Kaul's bench, he said: "This points to the extent of the government's day-to-day interference in the functioning of the Supreme Court." The caste query comes from the Indian Express report on the memoir, which The Leaflet quotes as saying Chandrachud once voiced the government's "bizarre" query about a minority-faith candidate. In The Leaflet, columnist S.N. Sahu goes further, writing that such developments "clearly underline the demolition of independence of judiciary from the executive". These are allegations and opinion. No government or BJP response appears in these reports.
One Judge's Recollection
A cautionary reading: take the procedural question seriously, but do not treat a memoir as a verdict.
Writing in The Hans India, a Hyderabad advocate calls the concern sensible. If names are cleared with the government before the Collegium meets, the idea that judges choose judges is weakened, even without intent. But he lists what the memoir does not show: it is one judge's recollection, the book is not yet out, and "by Justice Kaul's own account, the proposal did not go through. That suggests the Collegium's internal checks worked." He notes that Chandrachud's bench struck down the electoral bonds scheme, a ruling uncomfortable for the government. On the Congress's use of the memoir, he writes: "That does not make Justice Kaul's words false, but the readers should separate the memoir from the politics around it." LawChakra makes the same caution: the account of confidential deliberations has not been independently verified.
Divergence
Where the accounts part company, and on what.
The two former judges are largely answering different questions. Kaul's complaint is about informal consultation with the government before the Collegium formally meets. Chandrachud's reply cites the formal record: unanimous resolutions and no recorded dissent. That record cannot settle the dispute, because informal pre-meeting discussions are exactly what resolutions do not record. If the sixth name never reached a vote, as Kaul says, his objection would leave no trace of dissent either. Kaul's own words also narrow the charge. He says the practice predates and outlasts Chandrachud, offers approval of the sixth name only as a possibility, and rejects the idea that Chandrachud was trying to please the government. That makes it more a story about a system-wide habit than about one Chief Justice. The Congress's framing, government interference, goes beyond what Kaul says in the passages reported here. His account concerns a Chief Justice choosing to consult. Only the caste query, known so far through the Indian Express and Ramesh, involves a demand from the government. Still open: what the published book says in full, whether Chandrachud gives the detailed response he says depends on reading it, and whether the government or the Supreme Court responds at all.
Sources
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