Judge UU Lalit’s tenure in the office of the CJI is scheduled to end the first week of November. Justice DY Chandrachud will assume the office as the highest justice in the land and as the time neared a months old ghost emerged from the coffin now propelling the same old allegations against the senior Supreme Court justice .
For weeks, netizens have been pushing fake news, half-truths and targeting abuse against Judge Chandrachud related to his four-year-old Section 497 case.
In the case named Joseph Shine v. Union of India, Judge Chandrachud observed and gave his opinion at batting for the sexual autonomy of married women. His opinion related to the context of the constitutionality of Section 497 where adultery can be considered a criminal offence.
The men’s rights group took it on a different tone and took the whole episode as a decision to dismiss adultery as grounds for divorce which it was not and unleashed criticism against the judge for his pro-woman decision.
A report that appeared in The Hindu’s September 2018 report is now surfacing and ended Judge Chandracud at the center of a storm with trolls and venom-spewing critics.
Building on the claim discussed above, a new theory has swirled around the Supreme Court Justice who claims that Justice Chandracud holds a green card allowing him to work or settle permanently in the USA.
But, where did that claim start? A fact check in which revealed the future CJI claims were found to be false, here’s what we found.
The theory came about thanks to a misinterpretation of a tweet from a journalist named Raghav Ohri made on July 27. Ohri in his tweet detailed Judge Chandrachud’s order granting bail to Alt News co-founder Mohammad Zubair.
Her tweet read, “How an American green card holder, beleaguered husband and Indian news anchor came to the rescue of Zubair.”
His tweet detailed that out of three previous rulings, two were invoked by SC, seeing the involvement of Judge Chandrachud who presided over the case granting Zubair’s release.
What is #FlipkartScam? Order cancellation, account blocking and more information on suspected e-commerce fraud
The green card holder Ohri referenced in his tweet mentioned another litigant in the Supreme Court. The order issued in this case later laid the groundwork for Zubair’s release in Judge Chandrachud’s order.
How a US green card holder, a beleaguered husband and an Indian presenter came to Zubair’s rescue
Two of the three previous decisions SC relied on were co-authored by Judge Chandrachud who led the bench that ordered Zubair’s releasehttps://t.co/RBpMvXpkTd@ETPolitics pic.twitter.com/XKaEqqaPDo
— Raghav Ohri (@raghavohri0) July 27, 2022
Based on this, the tweet could have given the impression that Judge Chandrachud was the green card holder Ohri was referring to. It may also be that this fact has been twisted to suit the purposes of an agenda.
However, that’s not the end of the criticism Judge Chandrachud has faced, author Rajiv Malhotra in a September 29 video tweet read with the caption “Harvard’s liberal arts infiltrating the Supreme Court of ‘India!”
The video details Harvard as a snake’s nest and alleges false allegations about Judge DY Chandrachud showing the truncated clippings of his speeches.
Along with the list comes RK Pathan’s complaint to the President of India against the judge. In his complaint, Pathan, president of the Supreme and High Court Litigants Association of India, alleged corruption by the judge.
These frivolous allegations and complaints escalated in the CJI race in exactly one month.
However, courts and high authorities in the center have ignored these allegations against people close to or equal to the stature of Judge Chandrachud in the past, no wonder this time the fate of these claims is likely to remain the same.
