{ONE}
ON 13 MARCH 2016, the Allahabad High Court began a year-long celebration of its sesquicentennial anniversary. Among the five oldest high courts, it was established in 1866 and, today, stands as the largest, with a sanctioned strength of 160 judges. At the time, it was headed by Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud, who would be elevated to the Supreme Court two months later. The celebration was expected to be a grand affair. “It was a function like never seen before,” Shashi Tiwari, the vice-president of the high court’s bar association, recalled. The event was studded with bigwigs from the legal fraternity—including the chief justice of India, TS Thakur—but there were very few political figures, besides President Pranab Mukherjee.
Tarun Agarwala, the judge who chaired the organising committee, told me that there was initially some discussion about not sending formal invitations to any politicians. “It was a high-court function, and there was no reason to involve politicians,” he said. Another senior judge who had served in the high court at the time told me, on condition of anonymity, that this was a “conscious decision” by Chandrachud. “He was clear that the separation of powers required him to do this,” they said. The concept of separation of powers mandates that the three branches of government—the legislative, the executive and the judiciary—function independently.
“Neither the chief minister nor the prime minister of India was invited,” the judge said. “But, since the president was attending, protocol required the state’s chief minister and governor to accompany him.” DV Sadananda Gowda, the union law minister at the time, was also invited as a formality, but the event remained devoid of major political participation. According to the judge, this was a “testament to Chief Justice Chandrachud’s commitment to judicial independence.”