LET TOMORROW'S LAST DAY BE A FIRST FOR MANY

HE sequential trinity of annual timelines—independence day, the Supreme Court's platinum jubilee and the Constitution's forthcoming 75th year—is the coming together of an epic moment in our jurisprudential evolution.

- S VAIDHYASUBRAMANIAM

Democratic India, judicial India and social India share a mutually exclusive relationship chiselled by the contours of jurisprudence through the Constitution. The interpretative bridge of judges has always connected and balanced pre-constitutional ideas with the ever-changing Indian society, making this country the largest functional democracy. The 50th Chief Justice of India is a shining representation of that role in this harmonious trifecta, and he shall be sitting on the highest chair of justice for the last time tomorrow.

The text of the Constitution and the functional context of the enduring Indian social fabric find their cementing bond at the sacred halls of justice. This was played out in extraordinary style with Chief Justice Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud's court dispensing justice according to the law. The junior Chandrachud's second coming of his own first is a constituent chain of legacies through a memorable genealogy.

If Justice Y V Chandrachud presided over an era that refined the constitutionalism of the basic structure, Justice D Y Chandrachud's was one that defined the constitutionalism of a variety diffusing many ideas in the stream of national life.

In both, the common current was the deepening of constitutionalism as an article of faith in judicial workings and a richness of jurisprudence.