DIVIDED BENCH

Once unimaginable, Supreme Court judges are trading jabs in public, turning private disputes into spectacle and shaking faith in unity

- KAUSHIK DEKA

IN JANUARY 2018, four senior Supreme Court judges staged a press conference, an unprecedented airing of grievances against the then Chief Justice of India (CJI).

Seated on a lawn before television cameras, they shattered a tradition of judicial reticence. For decades, India's judges had guarded a cloistered collegiality, speaking to one another as “learned brother” or “learned sister”, and keeping disputes either buried in carefully worded judgments or confined behind closed doors. But today, that fraternal code appears frayed. From terse public remarks to conveniently leaked letters, judges now air their differences in full public view, a spectacle once unimaginable.

Consider the almost soap-operatic saga surrounding former CJI D.Y. Chandrachud’s official bungalow. He retired in November 2024, but by mid-2025, he was still occupying the CJI bungalow on Krishna Menon Marg in New Delhi, past the six-month grace period. In July, the SC administration asked the government to evict him “without any further delay”, citing lapsed extensions and a rules breach. The letter made its way to the media, lending it a touch of public shaming. Then, at a farewell in August, CJI B.R. Gavai vowed to vacate before his November retirement, praising a retiring colleague who “set a good example” by promptly vacating his official residence, a thinly veiled jab at his predecessor. “This episode was quite unusual. The trigger for this could be something extremely personal and not procedural,” says a former SC judge.