With Justice UU Lalit’s term at the office of CJI set to end in the first week of November. Justice DY Chandrachud will take over the charge as the country’s topmost judge and as the time approaches a months-old ghost is out of the coffin now propelling the same old allegations against the senior judge of the supreme court.
For weeks now Netizens have been pushing, fake news, half-truths, and targeting abuses against Justice Chandrachud linked with his four years old case on Section 497.
In the case named Joseph Shine v. Union of India, Justice Chandrachud observed and opined batting for the sexual autonomy of married women. His opinion was linked with the context of the constitutionality of section 497 where adultery can be regarded as a criminal offense.
The men’s rights group took it in a different tone and took the entire episode as a move in discounting adultery as a ground for divorce which was not the case and unleashed criticism on the judge for its pro-woman move.
A report which was published in The Hindu’s September 2018 report is now surfacing as the basis and has ended Justice Chandrachud in the center of a storm with trolls and detractors spewing venom.
Banking upon the claim discussed above a fresh theory has been taking the rounds on the Supreme Court Judge says that Justice Chandrachud is a holder of a Green Card allowing him to work or settle permanently in the US.
But, where did this claim start a fact check into this revealed that the claims on the to-be CJI were found fake, here is what we found.
The theory came into existence through a misinterpretation of a tweet by a journalist named Raghav Ohri made back on July 27th. Ohri in his tweet was detailing Justice Chandrachud’s order granting bail to Alt News co-founder Mohammad Zubair.
His tweet read, "How a US green card holder, an embattled husband & an Indian news anchor came to the rescue of Zubair.”
His tweet detailed that out of three previous rulings two were relied upon by SC seeing Justice Chandrachud’s involvement who presided over the case granting Zubair’s release.
The Green Card holder that Ohri referred to in his tweet mentioned a different litigant before the apex court. The order passed in that case later built the basis of Zubair’s release in Justice Chandrachud’s order.
Drunken girl misbehaved with a security guard in Ajnara Homes Society of Sector 121, Noida.
— Nikhil Choudhary (@NikhilCh_)
Based on this, the tweet might have created an impression that Justice Chandrachud was the Green Card holder that Ohri was referring to.
It also might have been the case that this fact was twisted to meet the ends of an agenda and apart from this there does not exist any such consolidative evidence which can weigh upon the green card theory even over this tweet.
However, it is not the end of the criticism Justice Chandrachud was subjected to, author Rajiv Malhotra in a video tweet made on September 29th read with the caption “Harvard Liberal Arts Infiltrates Supreme Court of India!”
The video details leveling Harvard as the nest of snakes and alleges false claims over Justice D.Y. Chandrachud showing the truncated clippings of his speeches.
In addition to the list comes RK Pathan’s complaint to the President of India against the Judge. In his complaint, Pathan who is the President of the Supreme Court & High Court Litigants Association of India has alleged corruption against the judge.
These frivolous allegations and complaints have intensified in the run for the post of CJI in exactly one month’s time.
However, the courts and top authorities at the center have overlooked these allegations against people close to or equal to the stature of Justice Chandrachud in the past, no wonder this time the fate of these claims is likely to remain the same.