Former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi’s recently launched autobiography has kicked off a string of discussions and disputes. In a candid conversation with CNN-News18, the Rajya Sabha member spoke on his key judgments such as on the Ayodhya issue and the Rafale row, as well as his colleagues, his encounter with politics and the various controversies that have shadowed him. Edited excerpts:
A man who helmed multiple landmark judgments, those verdicts that changed the course of the nation and political discourse of India: former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi who has come out with his tell-all autobiography, Justice for the Judge.
Thank you, but it is not a tell-all. If you look at the last line of the book, I have said there are secrets, opinions, statements, which I may or may not take to my grave. Time only will tell.
One thing that has intrigued all is the title of the book, Justice for the Judge. Of course, you say that this has nothing to do with the sexual harassment case that you faced as the CJI. Why would the topmost judge of the country feel that he has not succeeded in getting justice for his own self?
Justice for the Judge is not justice for Ranjan Gogoi. That has nothing to do with the sexual harassment case. Justice for the Judge, if anybody reads the book with a little amount of patience and care and caution, really means try and understand your judges, try and understand the nature of judicial office they hold, try and understand their compulsions, their norms of discipline, their ethics, their professional norms that are a little different from the ordinary, and if you do not understand your judges in the manner that is indicated, then they are likely to falter in the performance of their duties. This is what the book, through the title, seeks to convey. It does not seek to achieve justice for any particular judge, or, least of all, Justice Ranjan Gogoi.
In the chapter ‘A debt to the nation’, you have talked about public interest litigations and how former CJIs allocated those PILs based on whims and fancies and you have given certain examples particularly to do with the Kalikho Pul case and CJI Khehar’s tenure. Then you talked about Judge Loya’s case during CJI Dipak Misra’s tenure. Your writing certainly gives us this impression, Justice Gogoi, that the judiciary as an institution is deeply divided from within.
Any institution would have opinions and counter-opinions. Views and counterviews. That doesn’t make the institution divided. An institution can only survive if there is a free exchange of conflicting views and out of the conflicting views there emerges a consensus. This is what I tried to do when I was the helm of affairs and I believe that is what could be the answer for many problems of the judiciary. How individual chief justices functioned, how individual judges functioned is none of my business. I am talking about the institution. My efforts are to show the institution in the proper perspective.
In another chapter, you have talked about that press conference that you held with your brother judges and how there was speculation whether the-then CJI Justice Dipak Misra would be nominating you, recommending you as successor. Did you get that feeling at some point in those days, Justice Gogoi, that movement to courtroom no. 1 could be jeopardised?
Absolutely not. Absolutely zero. How our chief justice is to be appointed, what are the norms governing it are fairly well-established by long years of experiment, precedents, trial and errors and today what is underground has been set out in that book. The choice of the incoming chief justice, either of the executive or the outgoing chief justices, is severely curtailed except for some reason which I can’t visualise and God forbid, it ever comes into existence the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court has to be nominated as the next chief justice. If, for any reason, the outgoing chief justice thinks otherwise, he has to consult his senior-most judges. Then it becomes a collective decision. The government to my mind has no option but to abide by the recommendation of the outgoing CJI. So you have a wonderful system of checks and balances. The outgoing CJI is circumscribed, the government is controlled by the norms and, therefore, I never had any apprehension about being recommended to succeed Justice Dipak Misra by Justice Misra himself.
There is this paragraph in your book where you say this was to do with the allegations that you faced, it was an attempt to jeopardise the functioning of the CJI, you write that the plan was to stop me with immediate effect from attending any administrative or judicial work. This is a very serious allegation. Who was behind this, which were the forces you are indicating towards?
I wish I knew. But today I do not desire to know because to me, with the book, this is a closed chapter. I have said whatever is there to say. If information comes to the CJI that based on the complaint there is an attempt to file an Article 32 petition to stop the chief justice from functioning, what does the chief justice do? Does he go and find out who is after this? Or he does something to pre-empt that move and I may tell you I do not believe in summaries and conjunctions and come to my conclusions. It’s not fair. Proof in these kinds of matters is very difficult to find. Therefore, it is best to discipline your mind not to be swayed by emotions, perceptions, rumours, or by what you get to hear.
When you talk about your other judges, former Justices Chelameswar and Madan Lokur’s silence and their reaction on certain issues being selective. Was that also an emotional outburst?
I have not talked about it in my book, about Justice Chelameswar, about Justice Madan Lokur…What I have said is certain people who I don’t know and I would not wish to know have been selective in their outburst against me and I am not the only one who finds the outburst selective. There is this article where the correspondent of Times of India found justices so and so to be selective. I expressed no opinion. That is my next line under correctness or otherwise of this statement. This is the book.
You have questioned the political willingness of the NRC exercised in your state. You have said because you were the judge overseeing this that the viewpoint or the facts presented by the Assam and central government were not correct and what was correct was not being told. You feel that this is almost like a political tool that has been benefitting both the opposition and the ruling dispensation. Does this stand correct even today?
I am glad and I withdraw my statement made earlier that you have not read my book. You have read the most relevant part of my book and this sentence is one of my favourite sentences in the book. What was correct was not said and what was not correct was said. Yes, look, I will not go into politics and who played around with what politics. So far as the immigrant issue of Assam is concerned, it’s a real issue, it’s a live issue. How you tackle it is a political decision. So far as the NRC is concerned, it is a legally mandated issue under the Citizenship Act. You are required to have a National Register of Citizens which Assam had in 1951. Now vote bank politics, politics based on caste, religion is not the concern of the judge. We were faced with the petition where the NRC was required to be updated. We completed that exercise. Much has been talked about 9 lakh, 20 lakh people will be expelled from the country, this, that. These are all misconceptions. NRC is not a complete exercise by itself. NRC is only the identification of citizens from non-citizens. In the event you find non-citizens who are not eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Citizens, what you do to them is a political decision and it’s an independent decision. You can decide to give them refugee status. You can decide to give them citizenship as you have given to people who have come till 1971. You can decide to expel them. Or you can choose to do nothing. The NRC is not an exercise for the expulsion of immigrants from India. It is a document of identification. That’s all.
And then what did you tell that very senior bureaucrat of the government of India that visited you and told you to go slow? What did you communicate to him?
I told him why should I do that? I told him I don’t like interference with my judicial work.
Which year was this?
I don’t remember exactly, but he had come to my residence in January. So I must have been obviously number 2 or number 3 judge, perhaps sometime in 2018 or later part of 2017.
Is this kind of political interference, irrespective of the party in power, something that you sensed throughout your time in the apex court and how much of this impacts the justice delivery system?
Nil. Apart from two interferences, which I mentioned in my book, it was a dream run for me. I functioned as I thought a judge should function. There was no interference except on two occasions. I have also been forthright in saying what could have been the possible reason for not being approached, if the politicians or bureaucrats expose, approach the judges and what would have been the consequences. Would you like to know that?
Please go ahead.
I had told them that there is nobody in this country who dares to approach Ranjan Gogoi, to ask him to do something that his conscience will not permit. There is nobody in this country.
Why did you allow this particular bureaucrat to enter your house then?
If the home secretary of this country says, Marya Shakil, I would like to come and pay you a visit. You are doing a wonderful job on TV. Would Marya Shakil refuse that? No. If the senior bureaucrat says that chief judge I would like to have a cup of tea with you and chat. Will the judge refuse it?
What gave you the confidence that a vexed issue which has been you know dividing this country for decades, could be solved through a panel? This is in reference to the SC-appointed panel with regard to the Ayodhya dispute.
On that particular day, we were, in any case, granting three months time to our registry to make the papers ready. So the case is not going to be heard for three months. So a suggestion came that during these three months we should try and explore the possibility of a settlement through mediation. So, while the office would go on preparing the papers and carry on what is required to make the cases ready for hearing, what is the harm if the dispute can be settled in these three months through a court-appointed mediation? No harm. Both processes will continue, the hearing doesn’t get derailed, the date of the hearing is what it is. Three months there will be silence, let us utilise these three months to see if the mediation can bring any result.
You’ve talked about the marathon hearing of forty days in the Ram temple case and in the chapter you had hinted time and again about the impending retirement. November 2019. Had that date not been playing in your mind, would you have heard the matter differently?
If my date of retirement had not been November and it had been 17th of January next year, maybe the Ayodhya judgment would have come earlier.
Why do you say that?
Because I had other work to attend to. There were other important cases to attend to. Maybe the Ayodhya judgment would have come at least a couple of weeks earlier, leaving me sufficient time. And this continuous mention of November…I had no option, to fight or retreat. I don’t retreat. Now, once I started the case, I had to finish it. There was no way out. The credibility of the institution was at stake. The time of 5 judges on the bench would have been wasted. Therefore, this deadline of my tenure kept reminding me that everything has to get over within a particular time frame and that time frame was quite luxurious.
In a quote, you have said ”negative statements by activists and lawyers on one or other unrelated issue kept getting published perhaps to disturb the peace which was required to decide the case of such a magnitude”. Are you saying then, Justice Gogoi, that media reports outside court actually decide the outcome of the court?
There were a lot of negative statements, not only from the activist…I have mentioned somewhere that even some of my brother judges were saying, why this mad man has undertaken this task? He will never complete it. He will destroy the institution. I mentioned it in my book. Now, what is said outside the court is very consciously said. That’s also the theme of my book. This consciously said, to subconsciously make the judge awake that there is something behind the back. How far it succeeds on which judge, I don’t know. As far as I am concerned, it is obvious that it didn’t succeed.
And unanimous judgment but with an anonymous author. How possible was it because you were heading that bench, to have all the judges come on that consensus for a unanimous verdict?
The beauty is not only the unanimity of the opinions but also anonymity. It has happened in other cases. Recently, the Supreme Court dealt with that one-rupee content matter I have mentioned in my book. That is also anonymous.
In an interview, you said what happened after the judgment. You took your brother judges out…
If you were the Chief Justice of India, would you like your brother judges out who have worked so hard for 4 months? I took myself out for some outside food. Who do I take? I took my wife. This time I thought I’ll take my brother judges. Would you not have done the same thing?
Why was it important for you that the author of this verdict was anonymous and remains anonymous?
Because it increases the strength of the unanimous opinion.
Another verdict that is very important is Rafale. In that context, you have said that the outside world would like the court to function as an investigative body but judicial decisions are based on the material brought before it. What is the kind of pressure you faced when you were hearing this?
Pressure from whom? I never faced pressure from anybody during my entire career except for two. Never. Do you think apart from fighting from behind the curtains, anybody has the guts to tell me to do this or to do that? They are all behind the curtains. Somebody writes an article against me and he uses his first name, a second fellow writes another article, he uses his surname. They don’t even have the courage to give their full names. They will come and tell me and exert pressure on me? I don’t believe it.
While the Rafale judgment of three judges was unanimous again, it was you who faced severe criticism. Do you feel there was any particular reason why you were questioned more?
The judgment in Rafale was by three judges. The review judgment was by Justice SK Kaul. Justice Joseph delivered a separate order that he was also of the view that the review should be dismissed. So as far as the dismissal of the review is concerned, Justice Joseph dismissed the review. Justice Sanjay Kaul writes a judgment, dismisses the review. Gogoi Judgment. I don’t understand. Neither do I want to understand.
But Justice Gogoi is today a member of Parliament, of the Rajya Sabha…you have talked about two reasons, first, of course, you say this would be a platform in between issues related to judiciary and to inform Parliament about the problems facing your home state of Assam. In hindsight, since we are always wiser in the hindsight, how correct is your nomination, your acceptance of this nomination, because again you faced a lot of questions when you accepted this nomination?
If you start walking do you walk with your right foot first or your left foot first, have you ever noticed that? No. But for Justice Gogoi, Ranjan Gogoi, whether he is putting his left foot forward or right foot forward while starting the walk also becomes a matter of controversy.
You have had a controversial tenure as the CJI…
I had mentioned in the book that post-retirement, I was looking for a quiet life and my publishers have described me in the back cover or back folder…that I am essentially a family man who always kept a low profile away from the limelight. Justice Gogoi did not hesitate to answer life’s challenges etc, etc. Keep me away from the limelight, let me lead a quiet life.
Will that be a sequel to this book?
I hope so but I don’t think so…I am a little disappointed with the media. Two years have happened since my retirement…sexual harassment, Rafale, Ayodhya, Rajya Sabha…nothing more. All this happened two years back…There are so many things: my life, my childhood, my experiences of life, of India, of this world, of humanity, of humans, the SC, the judiciary, what needs to be done. You read the judiciary is not doing too well. The country is facing problems on the legal front. No journalist has asked me anything about these issues. Sexual harassment, judging his own case, constituted the committee to decide allegations against him, all have truths. Rafale, favoured the government, Ayodhya…God knows favoured whom…and Rajya Sabha quid pro quo. Nothing more.
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