“Sometimes law and justice do not necessarily follow the same linear trajectory. The law can be an instrument of justice but the law can be an instrument of oppression as well…. So how do we ensure, as citizens, that the law becomes an instrument of justice and does not become an instrument of oppression? I think the key is the way in which all decision-makers, not just judges, handle the law,” the CJI stated on the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit right here.

He identified that what sustains judicial establishments in the long term is the sense of compassion, a way of empathy and the flexibility to reply cries of residents.

“When you have the ability to hear unheard voices in your system, (see) unseen faces in the system and then see where the balance between the law and justice lies, then you can truly perform your mission as a judge,” he stated.

The CJI additionally referred to how social media has modified lives and the way it’s reflecting on courts.

“With real-time reporting in the courtrooms today, by the second every little word the judge says is put out on Twitter, or Telegram, or Instagram and you are constantly evaluated as a judge by what you say,” he stated.

“Now if you have judges who decide to keep quiet and not say things when arguments are going on, that would pose a grave danger to the process of judicial decision-making, because the ability of a lawyer to meet an argument, to answer concerns of the judge, and to explore the mind of the judge or the line of reasoning of a judge is critical to the work which we do in courts.”

Pointing out that the social media period is right here to remain, he stated the best way ahead is for judges to refashion and re-engineer themselves. “Now social media has challenged our assumption. What do we do? We live in the era of the Internet, we live in an era of social media. It’s here to stay. So I do believe we need to fashion, re-engineer ourselves as judges. We need to refashion ourselves, find new solutions, reframe ourselves, recoup ourselves, rethink our role, in trying to understand how we meet the challenges of the age in which we live”, he stated.

Touching on numerous causes for the backlog of instances, the CJI stated one of many challenges that courts face is “the challenge of expectations…. Almost every case comes into the lap, every social issue, every legal issue and I dare say, a large number of political issues, fall within the adjudicatory jurisdiction of the Supreme Court”

The CJI stated that the explanations for this “are numerous”, one among them being that the federal government is the most important litigant, which in flip is because of the “simple reason that we have over the last 70 years built a culture of indecision at the lowest levels of government”.

Consequently, “there is also a culture of distrust, and that culture of distrust leads many of our top decision-makers to be careful about taking decisions having a bearing on very high stakes”, he identified.

“Now all those cases are therefore deferred to the court; we would rather have the courts decide than us taking a decision. That’s one of the reasons why the courts have a large backlog of cases within the fold of cases that we decide,” he stated.

The CJI stated that there’s additionally the “culture of faith (of people) that there is something which will happen in their favour in the court”.

Chandrachud stated that “very often, the court is criticised that you have trenched upon an area of policy whereas your function as judges is only to decide upon legality”.

“While there is no doubt about that in a democratic form of government, particularly in a country like ours, we have a constitutional democracy, policy-making is entrusted to the executive arm of the government, because the executive is responsible to Parliament, and therefore it is their duty to lay down policy, it is their duty to enact laws, but equally our Constitution has a structural design where the power to interpret laws, the power to strike down a law which is not consistent with constitutional mandate, is entrusted to the judiciary and the judiciary alone,” he identified.