The Indian Panorama

Tag: Sanjay Hegde

  • The CJI’s restraint and the media’s reckoning

    The CJI’s restraint and the media’s reckoning

    This is the real danger. When outrage turns profitable, civility becomes costly. The judiciary, bound by decorum, cannot compete in that marketplace.

    That composure was constitutional philosophy in action. The CJI’s deliberate lack of reaction became the foundation of his decision not to press charges or initiate contempt. In that context, restraint was not leniency; it was majesty. By treating the episode as beneath response, the CJI affirmed that dignity is not lost through insult, but through insecurity.

    By Sanjay Hegde

    On a Monday morning, an act of madness breached the quiet dignity of the Supreme Court. A 71-year-old lawyer, Rakesh Kishore, hurled an object at the Chief Justice of India BR Gavai. The projectile missed, but the insult did not. I was in that courtroom. I did not see the act itself, only the sudden stir, the hush that followed, and the CJI’s calm voice: “Don’t get distracted. We are not distracted. These things do not affect me.”

    That response defined the day. There was no panic, no outburst, no order to have the man dragged away. The CJI continued to work, unruffled. Within seconds, the rhythm of proceedings resumed. It felt as if the institution, embodied in its pater familias, refused to be shaken.

    That composure was constitutional philosophy in action. The CJI’s deliberate lack of reaction became the foundation of his decision not to press charges or initiate contempt. In that context, restraint was not leniency; it was majesty. By treating the episode as beneath response, the CJI affirmed that dignity is not lost through insult, but through insecurity.

    The attacker did not deserve such grace. Inside court, he mumbled that his act was “intended for Gavai alone.” Outside, before cameras, his tone changed. He suddenly alleged that Sanatana Dharma had been insulted. The shift from personal pique to ideological posturing revealed the truth. This was not conviction but opportunism. Inside the court, he was an offender. Outside, in the theatre of social media, he styled himself a crusader.

    Interviews, statements and talk-show appearances began. Some TV anchors painted him as a misunderstood rebel. The man turned into content. Click by click, his infamy metastasized into influence.

    This is the real danger. When outrage turns profitable, civility becomes costly. The judiciary, bound by decorum, cannot compete in that marketplace.

    Till that point, the CJI’s restraint drew admiration. But as the offender continued to speak, as social-media clips began to glorify him, the Bench and the Bar stirred. Justice Ujjal Bhuyan called the act “an affront to the institution.” The Attorney General for India, R Venkataramani, acting on requests from the Bar, granted consent to initiate criminal-contempt proceedings against Rakesh Kishore — a rare and serious step.

    Supreme Court Bar Association president Vikas Singh, along with Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, mentioned the matter before the Bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi, seeking an early listing. Singh went further. He asked the Bench for a John Doe order — an injunction against social media posts glorifying the attack. The concern went beyond one man’s misconduct. A wider ecosystem of provocation was emerging, where violence against judges could become an algorithm for fame.

    Justice Surya Kant responded calmly. “Hon’ble CJI has been extremely magnanimous… that shows the institution is not affected by these kinds of incidents.” He wondered whether reopening the matter might give fresh oxygen to publicity seekers. Justice Bagchi agreed, asking if new proceedings would “revive and give a fillip to all these publicity-hungry elements.”

    Their worry was understandable. Every judicial action, however justified, risks becoming a hashtag battle. A contempt case could easily become Episode No. 2 of the same media drama.

    Justice Bagchi said, “It is because of our behavior in court that we survive and get the confidence of the people.” The Solicitor General described the Chief Justice’s forbearance as “a gesture of majesty.” He warned, however, that continued social media valorization was “a matter of institutional integrity.” Vikas Singh agreed, noting that Kishore had shown no regret and kept “making statements glorifying his act.”

    The imagery grew more striking when Singh invoked faith. “Some people say Lord Vishnu will justify it. Lord Vishnu will never justify this kind of violence. It is an insult to Lord Vishnu also.” Justice Kant agreed. “Our holy scriptures never condoned violence.”

    The moral argument was complete. Even in the language of the faith the offender claimed to defend, his act stood condemned.

    Ultimately, the Bench decided to list the matter after the Diwali vacation.

    Beyond this courtroom lies a larger unease. Judges across the system watch these events closely. They may draw a discouraging moral. If the CJI can face such an attack, and if institutions hesitate to respond for fear of feeding the media fire, disengagement sets in. The quiet extra-mile work that keeps the system functional becomes rarer. Institutions do not always collapse with a bang. They hollow out through small withdrawals of spirit. The relationship between the Bar and Bench, that compact of mutual trust, also begins to fray. The Bar’s immediate condemnation and the Supreme Court Bar Association’s decision to terminate the offender’s membership sent a clear signal of professional self-correction. The Bar Council of India’s suspension order reinforced that line.

    The hardest test lies before the media. When coverage morphs into celebration, when exclusive interviews with offenders are promoted for views, journalists cease to be chroniclers of justice and become profiteers of chaos.

    Social-media platforms, as Justice Bagchi noted, treat such incidents as money-spinning ventures. That is the heart of the problem. A man hurling a shoe at the CJI should be a figure of disgrace. If he becomes an algorithmic star instead, we are complicit in dismantling our own faith in law.

    The need now is for a measured but firm institutional response. Not hysteria. Not witch-hunt. The judiciary and the Bar must issue a unified statement that such acts are beyond the pale. Freedom of expression does not extend to assault, and ideological pretexts cannot launder violence.

    A John Doe injunction against glorifying such acts may raise questions about free speech. Yet, if narrowly tailored to restrain promotion rather than discussion, it can serve a limited but vital purpose. It can signal that contempt of court cannot be monetized. Sometimes the law must act not to punish the past, but to protect the future.

    Ultimately, this episode is about the faith of a billion citizens who still believe that, whatever the chaos outside, justice inside the SC proceeds with reason and restraint. Every attack on a judge is an attack on that faith. Every indulgent click, share, or laugh that follows such an attack erodes it a little more. Institutions must build structural safeguards and social consensus that violence against judges is unacceptable.

    The lesson of that Monday morning is twofold. First, the Chief Justice taught us the power of calm. Second, the aftermath reminds us that calm must not mean complacency. Let the offender face due process. Let the Bar remain vigilant. Let the media find its conscience again.

    And for all our sake, let us hope that the sooner the hype around this incident ends, the better it is.

    (Sanjay Hegde is a senior advocate at the Supreme Court)

  • Nudges from the Court, silence from the commission

    Nudges from the Court, silence from the commission

    The Special Intensive Revision of Bihar’s electoral rolls is a turning point for citizens, civil society and Parliament — universal franchise must not be undone in the name of ‘vigilance’

    “The ECI’s constitutional mandate is not merely to maintain clean lists. It is to ensure free and fair elections. This means enabling the right to vote — not erecting barriers to it. In this, the ECI is failing. And the Court, while alert, must decide whether it will continue nudging it or start directing it. A soft caution is not enough when millions face disenfranchisement.”   

    By Sanjay Hegde

    The Supreme Court of India speaks in questions. Sometimes softly, sometimes sharply. In its hearings on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) conducted by the Election Commission of India (ECI) in Bihar, the Court has asked what many in the country were thinking: Why was there a sudden need for fresh documentation? Why now? And what happens to the millions who cannot comply? Yet, the Court got a response from the ECI that did not address the underlying concern. The ECI insists that this is a technical revision. But the reality on the ground, and the implications of its policy, tell a very different story.

    The SIR in Bihar requires every voter to submit new proof of citizenship — within one month — or face removal from the voter list. The stated intent is accuracy. But the effect is exclusion. This is not administrative housekeeping. It is an ideological shift in the treatment of citizens: from presumed inclusion to presumptive exclusion. This shift marks a deep departure from the constitutional vision of universal adult franchise.

    Turning away from constitutional promises

    When India became a republic, it did something radical: it gave the vote to all adults, regardless of literacy, income, caste or gender. The Constituent Assembly debated this extensively. Many Members doubted whether the country was ready. But Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, among others, insisted that political equality must come first as a prelude to achieving social and economic equality.

    That principle was translated into practice by the first Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Sukumar Sen (March 21, 1950-December 18, 1958). Faced with 173 million potential voters, most of them illiterate, he innovated. He introduced voting symbols and designed processes that made participation easy, not difficult. India’s first elections were not perfect, but they were inclusive. In contrast, the revision in Bihar by India’s 26th CEC, Gyanesh Kumar, is the opposite. By demanding rare documents such as birth certificates and passports — held by only a small fraction of the population, the ECI is setting a bar that millions cannot meet. Aadhaar cards and ration cards, widely held by the poor, are not accepted. In Bihar, over 65 lakh people may now be at risk of disenfranchisement.

    This is not an isolated event. We saw a similar exercise in Assam. The classification of lungi-wearing, Bengali-speaking Muslim inhabitants as “D-voters” (doubtful voters) by the officers of the Election Commission, turned thousands into stateless persons. Many found themselves pleading before foreigners’ tribunals, facing hostile bureaucracies and with no real opportunity to prove citizenship. With tribunals declaring them as foreigners and with no country ready to accept them, many have been just forcibly thrown away across India’s borders, as unwanted human detritus.

    Bihar is at risk of repeating that mistake. The State is poor, flood-prone, and infrastructurally weak. A rigid document deadline during the monsoon season is not just poor planning. It is a barrier, intentionally or otherwise, for the poor and the marginalized to access the ballot box . The burden of proof has now shifted. Citizens must prove that they belong, rather than the state proving they do not. This reversal may seem technical, but its moral and democratic cost is immense.

    Historical lessons and warnings

    There are disturbing echoes here of the Jim Crow era in the United States (late 19th century to the mid-20th century), where African-American voters were disenfranchised through literacy tests, poll taxes and administrative obstructions. The veneer was legal; the purpose was political. It took federal intervention and landmark rulings such as Reynolds vs Sims (1964) and the Voting Rights Act 1965 to restore the right to vote as a true universal right.

    India has similar legal protections. Supreme Court rulings such as Md. Rahim Ali vs State of Assam (2024) and Lal Babu Hussein vs Electoral Registration Officer (1995) have made it clear: disenfranchisement without due process is unconstitutional. Citizenship cannot be revoked or denied arbitrarily. Yet, here we are again — requiring the most vulnerable to navigate a process stacked against them.

    The Court, during its hearing, asked pointed questions about the humanitarian consequences of the ECI’s actions. But the ECI’s response has been administrative, not empathetic. It continues to insist on timelines and technicalities, without addressing the social reality.

    The ECI’s constitutional mandate is not merely to maintain clean lists. It is to ensure free and fair elections. This means enabling the right to vote — not erecting barriers to it. In this, the ECI is failing. And the Court, while alert, must decide whether it will continue nudging it or start directing it. A soft caution is not enough when millions face disenfranchisement.

    If this continues unchecked, we are entering dangerous territory. Voting could become a privilege of the documented middle class — urban, salaried, tech-savvy — while the poor, the displaced, and the undocumented are left behind. We risk creating two Indias: one with voting rights and one without. Political parties will then cater only to those who count — literally. Those without votes will be ignored in policymaking, welfare and justice. We are not just talking about voter lists here. We are talking about power — Who gets it. Who keeps it. And who is kept out of it.

    A quiet Emergency

    There is no need for tanks on the street to declare an emergency. A quiet one is already here. It arrives through missing names, unmet deadlines and unanswered questions. It arrives when state machinery treats citizenship as a favor, not a right. This moment calls for resistance — not just from the Court, but from citizens, civil society and Parliament. We must reclaim the principle that the right to vote belongs to the people, not the paperwork. Sadak, samaj and Supreme Court must loudly proclaim that Mother India belongs to all her children and that she does not discriminate on a religious or economic basis when her protection is sought.

    As historian Ornit Shani reminds us in the book, How India Became Democratic, universal franchise was not an administrative accident, it was an imaginative leap. Bureaucrats and citizens together transformed a colonial mindset into a democratic one. That achievement must not be undone in the name of vigilance.

    The ECI must remember that elections are not entrance examinations. They are acts of belonging. And in a democracy, you do not have to prove you belong. You vote because you are a citizen. And you are a citizen because the Constitution says so, not because you can find your birth certificate.

    The vote is not a mere document. It is a declaration: that we are all equal. That one man has one vote and one vote has one value. That even if I have one vote out of 1.4 billion votes, it is an equal share in the republic, in which I and every Indian are equal participants. That right of ownership and participation is what is now at stake.

     

    (Sanjay Hegde is a Senior Advocate designated by the Supreme Court of India)

  • Two democracies and the echoes of tyranny

    Two democracies and the echoes of tyranny

    The same dynamics that enabled the Emergency in India now threaten the U.S.; the lesson is that tyranny thrives when institutions become hollow

    “Every generation must reclaim democracy for itself. The battles our forebears fought — against monarchy, against colonialism, against Emergency — are not relics. They are warnings. They are calls to vigilance. The Constitution is not an heirloom. It is a mandate. It must be re-defended, reinterpreted, and reaffirmed by each generation.

    It is easy to celebrate Independence Day with fireworks and fanfare. But the revolution was not a party. It was an act of resistance against arbitrary rule. Thomas Paine wrote, “Let the law be king”. Not presidents. Not parties. Not mobs. But the law. And only when the people demand it. We must resist the normalization of revenge politics, the erosion of checks and balances, and the authoritarian cult of personality.”

    By Sanjay Hegde

    On  July 4, the United States observed its Independence Day. A quarter of a millennium ago, the American people declared their resolve to live not under kings but under laws. They fought to build a government accountable to the people, not one that claimed to rule in their name. In their Declaration of Independence, the Founders wrote that “when a long train of abuses and usurpations” reveals a design to reduce the people “under absolute Despotism,” it is not only their right but also their duty to resist. In that tradition, a conservative Federal judge, Judge J. Michael Luttig marks the occasion with a solemn warning: the ideals of 1776 are not self-perpetuating. Judge Luttig’s modern “27 truths” remind Americans that self-government is not guaranteed by parchment or precedent. It must be defended daily, especially against those who seek to crown themselves in defiance of the Constitution. Tyranny, once foreign, now threatens from within.

    India’s democratic backsliding

    Luttig’s warning is not hyperbole. It is a reflection of global experience, including India’s democratic backsliding 50 years ago. India’s Emergency under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, on June 25, 1975, suspended civil liberties, censored the press, imprisoned over 1,00,000 citizens, and reduced Parliament and the courts to shadows of themselves. It did not come through violence or revolution. It came through law. Indira Gandhi claimed she was saving democracy. In fact, she was suffocating it.

    In his book, Emergency Chronicles: Indira Gandhi and Democracy’s Turning Point, historian Gyan Prakash exposed how democratic institutions can die not with a bang, but with a nod. There was no coup. No tanks.

    The Army Chief, General T.N. Raina, a fellow Kashmiri, was asked for his support, but he refused to get into the politics of the day — rightly so. Indira Gandhi did not openly defy the Constitution but exploited its weaknesses. After a court found her guilty of electoral fraud and barred her from office, she declared an “internal disturbance” and triggered Article 352 of the Indian Constitution. Overnight, dissent became treason. Rights became privileges. And power became personal.

    The real tragedy was not just what Indira Gandhi did. It was how effortlessly she did it. Judges, Ministers, civil servants, even journalists — people entrusted with guarding democracy — chose loyalty over law. The Supreme Court ruled that during the Emergency, even the right to life could be suspended. Only one judge, Justice H.R. Khanna, dissented. He was never appointed Chief Justice, punishment for his integrity.

    H.V. Kamath saw it coming. The former civil servant-turned-freedom fighter and member of India’s Constituent Assembly, he had almost pleaded that the Emergency’s provisions being embedded in the Constitution were too dangerous. In 1949, he compared India’s draft provisions to Germany’s Weimar Constitution, which Hitler had exploited to build his dictatorship. H.V. Kamath said, “First, the grand affirmation… and surmounting that edifice is the arch of the great negation.” He begged for checks and balances. He begged for the Constitution to protect future generations but was ignored.

    When Indira Gandhi declared internal Emergency 26 years later, the mechanism H.V. Kamath had feared came to life. Dissenters were detained under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA), a preventive detention law. Police abducted students in broad daylight. Sanjay Gandhi, who was unelected and unaccountable, operated a parallel state, pushing brutal sterilization campaigns and slum demolitions. Entire neighborhoods in Delhi were razed. Protesters were shot. Families were displaced. Inmates were tortured. All of it was “legal”. None of it was democratic.

    When the Emergency ended in 1977, India voted Indira Gandhi out in a landslide. The Janata government passed the 44th Amendment to prevent such abuses from recurring. But the deeper damage to political culture, to institutions, to the idea that constitutionalism alone can protect democracy remains. India moved on, but never fully reckoned with how close it came to authoritarian collapse.

    Similar dynamics in the U.S.

    Which brings us back to the United States. The parallels are unmistakable. U.S. President Donald Trump has not declared an Emergency. He does not need to. He has a majority in both Houses of Congress and a 6-3 conservative majority in the Supreme Court, which legalizes all his actions. He can weaponize the Justice Department to prosecute his opponents, threaten to strip immigrants of their citizenship and residency status, and even threaten to “terminate” parts of the Constitution. He seeks not to hold power, but to own it. As Judge Luttig notes, this is not reform. It is monarchy by another name.

    And just like in India, the institutions meant to stop him have mostly failed. Congress hesitated. Republicans enabled. Courts delayed. Media rationalized. Many shrugged, waited, and hoped someone else would act. In this way, guardrails do not just erode under outside pressure. They rot from within.

    Americans must confront a hard truth: the same dynamics that enabled the Emergency in India now threaten the American republic. As H.V. Kamath warned, Constitutions do not protect liberty on their own. They must be guarded by people with the courage to say no. If Congress (Parliament) refuses to assert its role; if courts bend under partisan pressure; if the press becomes passive; if law enforcement serves power instead of the public — then the law ceases to be king. And we begin the slow coronation of another.

    There is a historical irony here too deep to ignore. Years after Indira Gandhi imprisoned her opponents and suffocated the Constitution, her grandson, Rahul Gandhi, now brandishes that very Constitution as a talisman against rising authoritarianism in India. At protest rallies, he holds up Ambedkar’s book, invoking the very document Indira Gandhi once bent to her will. Where once the Constitution was used to silence dissent, it is now Rahul Gandhi’s weapon to preserve it.

    A call to be vigilant

    There is a lesson here that transcends families and nations: every generation must reclaim democracy for itself. The battles our forebears fought — against monarchy, against colonialism, against Emergency — are not relics. They are warnings. They are calls to vigilance. The Constitution is not an heirloom. It is a mandate. It must be re-defended, reinterpreted, and reaffirmed by each generation.

    It is easy to celebrate Independence Day with fireworks and fanfare. But the revolution was not a party. It was an act of resistance against arbitrary rule. Thomas Paine wrote, “Let the law be king”. Not presidents. Not parties. Not mobs. But the law. And only when the people demand it. We must resist the normalization of revenge politics, the erosion of checks and balances, and the authoritarian cult of personality. Democracy is not just a system of rules. It is a culture of restraint. Of limits. Of humility before power. The Emergency in India failed because the people ultimately remembered what had been stolen from them. History never repeats exactly as it happened. But it does echo. The Emergency’s lesson is not that tyranny is foreign. It is that tyranny is familiar, legal and welcomed when institutions go hollow.

    Today, both India and America are democracies by form. But their futures depend on substance. On how citizens, courts, journalists, legislators and civil servants act when faced with leaders who believe they are above the law. The difference between a republic and a monarchy is not just procedure. It is accountability. When a king breaks the law, it becomes policy. When a President or Prime Minister does, it becomes a test.

    India failed that test in 1975. We cannot afford to fail it again. We must defend the law as if it were our crown. Because if we do not, someone else will wear it. And they will not take it off.

    (Sanjay Hegde is a Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court of India)