DY Chandrachud is an Indian Supreme Court justice. He is an ex-chief Justice of the Uttar Pradesh High Court and a former Bombay High Court justice. He is the incumbent executive chairperson of the National Legal Services Authority and is scheduled to take over as Chief Justice of India in November 2022. He is the son of the longest-serving Chief Justice, Y. V. Chandrachud.
Professional life
Dhananjaya attended law at the University Of Delhi in 1982 when there were limited opportunities for young law graduates. For a time, as a young attorney, he assisted lawyers and justices and wrote statements for advocate Fali Nariman. After completing his higher studies at Harvard, Chandrachud commenced his career as a lawyer with the corporation Sullivan & Cromwell.
Because of the powerful hierarchical order at the time and a significant bias against recruiting Indians and other developing nations, he regarded this event as a “complete fluke.” He returned to India and appeared in the Supreme Court of India and the Maharashtra High Court. The Maharashtra High Court nominated him as a Senior Attorney in June 1998.
That same year, he was chosen as India’s Additional Solicitor General, a position he retained until his elevation as a Judge. From March 29 2000, till his selection as Chief Justice of the Uttar Pradesh High Court, he was a justice of the Maharashtra High Court. He was also the Head of the Maharashtra Law Academy during the time. From October 31 2013, till his nomination to the Supreme Court of India on May 13 2016, he served as Chief Justice of the Uttar Pradesh High Court.
Recent Development
- UU Lalit, the Chief Justice of India, has proposed DY Chandrachud as his replacement. Chandrachud will become the 50th Chief Justice of India, serving for two years until November 10, 2024.
- The soon to stepping-down CJI names the veteran justice as a replacement after suggesting him to the Union Law Ministry, as per the rules. Lalit will step down on November 8.
- The ministry requests that the CJI mention their replacement approximately 30 days before they retire. The next CJI is chosen by the outgoing CJI according to their seniority.
- So now Chandrachud’s name has been declared, the Collegium led by Lalit will be dissolved, and Chandrachud will choose a new one following his inauguration.
Some of his Remarkable Judgements
In the matter of the Right to Privacy:
- His spur perception in Justice K. S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) and Anr. Vs Union Of India And Ors. was part of a clear majority nine-judge Bench judgment of the Indian Supreme Court that reiterated that the right to privacy is constitutionally protected.
- Chandrachud based the right to privacy on humility, freedom, independence, bodily and psychological integrity, consciousness, and other protected rights.
- In a letter addressed to himself and three other judges, he mentioned: “Dignity cannot exist without privacy. Both reside within the inalienable values of life, liberty, and freedom that the Constitution has recognised. Privacy is the ultimate expression of the sanctity of the individual. It is a constitutional value which straddles across the spectrum of fundamental rights and protects for the individual a zone of choice and self-determination.”
In the matter of Gender Equality
Sabarimala Case
Justice Chandrachud has penned multiple gender justice decisions that call for a “transformation in mindset” and support women’s equal constitutional rights. In the Indian Young Lawyers Association v. The state of Kerala, he wrote a concurring opinion in which he ruled that excluding women of menstrual age from attending the Sabarimala shrine was unjust and infringed on women’s fundamental rights. In his decision, he stated that “the individual right to religious freedom was not intended to predominate over, but was subject to the overarching constitutional postulates of equality, liberty, and personal freedoms recognised in the other articles of Part III.”
According to The Hindu, he stated: “The Court must lean against granting constitutional protection to a claim which derogates from the dignity of women as equal holders of rights and protections… Does the Constitution permit this as a basis to exclude women from worship? Does the fact that a woman has a physiological feature – of being at a menstruating age – entitle anybody or a group to subject her to exclusion from religious worship? The physiological features of a woman have no significance to her equal entitlements under the Constitution… To exclude women is derogatory to equal citizenship.”
