Ayodhya Judgment Will Always Remain A Judgment Of Supreme Court: CJI Chandrachud On Authorship Of Judgment

In a recent interview, Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud refused to divulge who authored the Judgment of the Apex Court in the Ayodhya case. Based on the writing style, it was widely speculated that CJI Chandrachud is the author of the Judgment delivered by a Constitution Bench that he was part of.

The CJI was asked by the interviewer, "Everyone is curious to know who authored the judgment because it happened for the first time that the judgment did not carry any name as to who authored the judgment. Can you now reveal who actually authored that judgment? Many believe that it is you. Can you please elaborate to us because the issue is now almost over and the temple is to be inaugurated this month? Who actually authored the judgment and why was it kept secret?"

CJI Chandrachud replied, "When the five-judge bench sat to deliberate on the judgment, as we all do before a judgment is pronounced, we all decided unanimously that this will be a judgment of the Court and therefore there is no authorship ascribed to an individual judge".

He added, "The case had a long history, of conflict, of diverse viewpoints based on the history of the nation, and all of us who were part of the bench decided that this will be a judgment of the Court. The Court will speak through one voice. And the idea of doing so was to send a clear message that all of us stood together, not only in the ultimate outcome, but in the reasons which were indicated in the judgment and that was why we decided that this will read as a judgment of the Court".

"Since we decided that this will read as a judgment of the Court, it will always remain a judgment of the Court and I will close my answer with that", the CJI said smiling.

The Constitution Bench that delivered the judgment comprised the then CJI, Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde, Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice Ashok Bhushan, and Justice S. Abdul Nazeer. The 1045-page judgment had the names of all judges on the Bench, mentioned in the order of their seniority. However, the index, footnotes, font and writing style matched that of Justice DY Chandrachud.

During the interview given to PTI, CJI Chandrachud also said that we have to ensure that the allocation of cases to judges of the Supreme Court is not lawyer-driven.