Justice Dy Chandrachud’s Legacy Through His 5 Key Judgments

Written by:

Adv Ankit Kansal

Updated: 23-03-2024

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On Friday, Justice DY Chandrachud’s colleagues remembered him with great emotion on his last working day in office as he was full of memories from the time he worked with them. Apart from having many concise quotes, the retirement of Justice DY Chandrachud also adds a unique touch of his own to the chronicles of law.

He has judgements including the Ayodhya land dispute, the decriminalization of heterosexual relationships, and abortion rights for single women which have significantly impacted society and politics in his country.

Chief Justice DY Chandrachud: About

He was born into the family with a background in law on November 11, 1959. He is the son of YV Chandrachud who was the Chief Justice of India for the longest time.
Justice Chandrachud has served the Supreme court for the last eight years. He has written over 600 judgments and has been a member of more than one thousand two hundred benches. This period saw him delivering judgments on issues from the right to privacy to freedom of expression, gender justice, and many other issues.
With retirement of Justice DY Chandrachud on the 10th of November, we take a look at his most landmark judgments and most prominent dissents in significant issues of society.

5 Key Landmark Judgments by DY Chandrachud

The 5 Key Landmark Judgments by DY Chandrachud is as follows:

Verdict on Ayodhya Dispute:

In a landmark judgment, the five-member Constitution Bench ruled that all the contested 2.77 acres in Ayodhya should be allocated to the Hindu factions for building the Ram Mandir.
Further, the Court mandated the allocation of a 5 acres plot to the Sunni Waqf Board for the purposes of building a mosque. It had noted that the demolition of the Babri Masjid was a breach of the law in 1992.
There was also an observation made, and it was based on the findings of a report issued by the Archaeological Survey of India, that there was no indication that the structure in any way resembled a temple of Lord Ram.

Verdict on Right to Privacy:

In August 2017, a nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court held that the Right to Privacy is a fundamental right guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.
The judgment of CJI Chandrachud explained that privacy is an emanation of freedom and dignity. Later, this judgment has also impacted other judgments concerning data protection, Aadhaar, and personal freedom.
It all started in 2012 when retired justice KS Puttaswamy contested the constitutionality of the Aadhar Act. The Aadhar Act authorized the implementation of the Unique Identity Number program in India.

Verdict on Homosexuality:

On September 6th, 2018, a 5-judge Supreme Court bench settled the controversy in the case of Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India, and partially struck down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which is a 158-year-old law that punished adult consensual homosexuality.
The Court held that the provisions relating to homosexuality under the Section would remain in force.
Writing a separate but concurring opinion, CJI Chandrachud expressed the damage done by Section 377 in relation to the exclusion of a whole section of society. He referred to his earlier judgment in the case of Puttaswamy concerning privacy and suggested that the denial of the right to sexual orientation was simply another way of putting people’s right to privacy away.
He emphasized that binary concepts and reproductive constraints should be avoided when contemplating human sexuality.

Verdict on Abrogation of Article 370:

The Majority opinion articulated by CJI Chandrachud maintained that Article 370 was a transitory clause meant for exigencies of the moment, and did not provide distinct sovereignty to the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
For Article 370 of the Constitution (2023), the apex court supported the Union of India's decision to abrogate certain parts of Article 370, which conferred special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir

Verdict on Abortion:

In a landmark decision, Chief Justice Chandrachud ruled in favour of unmarried women’s rights by allowing them to terminate their pregnancy, in consonance to married women, under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, up to twenty-four weeks gestation.
The court ruling focused on women’s reproductive freedoms, opining that a woman’s marital status should not interpose in her rights of her body or the decisions as to whether to conceive or bear children.

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