Justice DY Chandrachud set to be India's 50th CJI: Two instances when he overturned judgments of his father

Chief Justice of India U U Lalit on Tuesday recommended to the Centre the name of the senior-most Supreme Court judge Justice Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud as his successor.

Justice Chandrachud, who has been part of several Constitution benches and landmark verdicts of the top court including on matters relating to the Ayodhya land dispute, right to privacy and adultery, will become the 50th CJI on November 9 once the recommendation is accepted by the government. 

Notably, Justice Chandrachud is the son of the longest serving CJI Y V Chandrachud. The former CJI was the head of the judiciary from February 22, 1978 to July 11, 1985.

There have been two incidents in Justice DY Chandrachud’s career when he overturned his father’s judgments. 

In 2017, Justice DY Chandrachud upheld the Right to Privacy as a fundamental right while setting aside a controversial order that supported the Emergency of 1975. He was one of the part of a nine-judge bench and wrote the lead verdict in the Supreme Court’s landmark judgment. 

His father Justice YV Chandrachud had upheld the presidential order to impose the Emergency, a period during which the Indira Gandhi-led Congress government imposed curbs on democratic rights, put several opposition leaders behind the bars and clamped down on the media. 

He was part of the five-judge bench which ruled in 1976 that fundamental rights can be suspended during Emergency and people cannot approach courts seeking protection of their rights. 

Justice HR Khanna was the only dissenting judge who had observed: "What is at stake is the rule of law...the question is whether the law speaking through the authority of the Court shall be absolutely silenced and rendered mute…," as reported by NDTV. 

In 2017, Justice DY Chandrachud termed the 1976 Supreme Court order “seriously flawed” and praised Justice Khanna. "The view taken by Justice Khanna must be accepted, and accepted in reverence for the strength of its thoughts and the courage of its convictions," he said.

In the adultery law, senior Chandrachud had upheld the validity of Section 497. Justice YV Chandrachud wrote the Sowmithri Vishnu judgment. Thirty-three years later, his son Justice DY Chandrachud, while hearing the case, had said, “We must make our judgments relevant to the present day.”

“The law in adultery is a codified rule of patriarchy,” Justice DY Chandrachud wrote in his judgment striking down the law. According to him, Section 497 "perpetrates the subordinate nature of woman in a marriage".

"Very often, adultery happens when the marriage has already broken down and the couple is living separately. If either of them indulges in sex with another person, should it be punished under Section 497?" - Justice DY Chandrachud said.