The Marauding Executive II

Continuing from the previous blog at:

https://b-b-dash.blogspot.com/2026/09/the-marauding-executive.html

M’lords, what is this obsession about whether there was a temple where a mosque stands now? By that logic, even if there was a temple, before the temple, there might’ve been deep forest, or even an ocean so should we go back to the forests/ water, etc.? Some lines needed to be drawn in term of time for maintaining the status quo. The Places of Worship Act had done that but when certain elements started digging around mosques, hasn’t the Supreme Court’s passivity led to complete destabilisation of India’s social fabric? 

In its order dated March 2, 2023, the Supreme Court itself held that holding free and fair elections is an absolute necessity for upholding democracy and towards this end, appointment of election commissioners must be shielded and insulated from executive interference so that they remain neutral and independent. It had laid down the appointment of the election commissioners through a committee comprising the Prime Minister, Leader of the largest opposition party and the Chief Justice of India until the legislature passed a law. The government blithely arranged to pass a law in December 2023, completely negating the Supreme Court order by having a Committee comprising the Prime Minister, the Leader of the largest opposition party and a Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister. This was challenged in the Supreme Court and on February 15, 2024, the Supreme Court fixed February 19 for hearing, also saying, if anything happened in between, consequences were “bound to follow.” The government convened a meeting of the Committee, post haste on February 17, overruled the Leader of opposition 2-1 and appointed two election commissioners around midnight the same day. We have seen the consequences of this. No consequences have followed. In this situation, wasn’t the minimum the Supreme Court should have done was to scrap these appointments and hold a day-to-day hearing to decide the matter? Instead, the matter is still pending a decision in the Supreme Court, more than two and a half years later. We have seen the end result of this where lakhs of genuine voters have been disenfranchised and disembowelled through being disgorged out of welfare benefits and a Chief Election Commissioner allegedly boasting, “Tiger zinda hai, (…) Party ko jeeta diya!”

 

The entire Hindenburg saga looked like the Supreme Court actions were meant to shield the ruling party from a Joint Parliamentary Committee investigation. When SEBI’s own conduct was extremely suspect, the Supreme Court chose to rely solely on the SEBI report and refused a court-monitored special investigation. Instead of cleaning up the Augean stables that is India’s capital market, it chose to raise questions on the whistleblower.

 

Governments in India have always snooped. However, the Pegasus saga revealed the unimaginable scale and intrusiveness of it. There do not seem to be adequate safeguards even against extremely “rogue snooping” when a female staff of a Supreme Court Chief Justice could be targeted, as alleged. The government even refused to cooperate with a Supreme Court appointed committee tasked with uncovering the facts. Isn’t it time the Supreme Court laid down the law and insisted on special courts to authorise such snooping?

 

The collegium system for appointment of judges has been instituted and upheld to insulate the judiciary from Executive interference. M’lords, kindly look at the case of Justice Atul Sreedharan. He has been one of the judges who has answered many of the questions raised in this piece and the previous one. He quashed the detention of Delhi University student Akriti Choudhury under National Security Act just because she sympathised with the Noida protesting workers and ordered a compensation of Rs. 10 lakhs from the salary of the District Magistrate and other officials. This DM also happens to be the daughter of Mr. Gyanesh Kumar, he of the SIR fame. He ruled that the Collector and SP should seek transfer out of Sambhal if they can’t maintain law and order if Muslims couldn’t offer namaz in a designated private property. He delivered a verdict against the so-called, absolutely illegal “bulldozer justice” by ordering that there needed to be a period of two-year notice from registration of FIR in case of retributive justice or one-year notice in case of public purpose demolition. And so on. In Madhya Pradesh High Court, he was next in seniority to be included in the High Court collegium. He was transferred to Chhatisgarh High Court in October 2025 and would have been part of the collegium there too. However, before the transfer was confirmed, the SC Collegium, “on consideration sought by the (Central) government,” decided to move him to Allahabad HC, where he is not in the seniority list to make it to the Collegium. So, where is the independence of the collegium, or, for that, matter, the judiciary?

 

So, here’s the final question, M’lords. When the history of Indian jurisprudence is written, will this period be written in golden letters or in charcoal black?