Who threatens the court?

Modi's reference to the 'committed judiciary' takes us back to the 1970s, when Indira Gandhi's government twice superseded senior judges while appointing the CJI

- SHEKHAR GUPTA

There's been a flurry of action around India's higher judiciary. First, there is a letter collectively signed by 600 members of the bar, including Harish Salve. Addressed to the Chief Justice of India, the letter offers support and solidarity at a time when the court, the signatories say, is under an egregious assault from parties interested in undermining it.

This might have passed as some usual bar politics, particularly when in some states (notably West Bengal) bar council elections are also being fought on party symbols. But not once did Prime Minister Narendra Modi endorse it, either. He shared the text of the lawyers' letter of support and solidarity for what they see as an endangered judiciary with an interesting comment - 50 years ago the Congress demanded a "committed judiciary".

This takes us back to 1973 and then 1977, when Indira Gandhi's government carried out two acts of significant superseding of the appointment of the Chief Justice of India. Each decision was politically motivated. In fact, each was directly linked to a significant order of the top court in that fraught decade.

The first, April 1973, was the superseding of the three senior-most judges: Jaishanker Manilal Shelat, A N Grover, and KS Hegde and the appointment of Ajit Nath Ray as the CJI over their heads. The three who were passed over resigned. The context was the Kesavananda Bharati judgment, in which a 13-judge Bench determined 7-6 that there was something called the basic structure of our Constitution. Ray was among the six who said "no". The three passed over were among those who established the "basic structure" doctrine, and generations of Indians have to be grateful to them.