Chronicles Of India's Judiciary

AN ALMOST PUBLIC tussle between the top judges of the Supreme Court,allegations that the Chief Justice picks benches to suit outcomes, an obstinate government meddling in judicial appointments to keep their ideological opponents out of contention 2018 has seen all of the above; and yet, none of these is unprecedented.

- Abraham C. Mathews

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An American scholar, and close observer of the Indian Supreme Court, George H. Gadbois, spent several years in India, in between the 1960s and the 1980s, a large part of which he spent interviewing the top judges and other legal luminaries of the country. Being a whiteman, he had unprecedented access. As meticulous as the best journalists of those days, Gadbois took handwritten notes during these conversations, and later transcribed them into typewritten copies. These notes then became the foundation for three scholarly books of his own authorship, including Supreme Court of India: The Beginnings (OUP), published posthumously (and reviewed on these pages before).

And now, some of those notes have lent material to a fourth, which can be devoured with just the same exertion that pulp fiction demands. Gadbois, shortly before his death, handed over his diaries to advocate Abhinav Chandrachud, who condensed these notes into Supreme Whispers. Egotists nonpareil, these judges poured their hearts and minds out to Gadbois, and as a result, we have a book, unapologetically gossipy, but which shines the clearest light on the men (India got its first woman judge in the SC only at the fag end of Gadbois’ travails) that shaped our jurisprudence.