In four years, K. Chandru, the people's judge from Tamil Nadu, has passed 54,000 judgments, N. Asokan writes
INDIA'S BEST COLLEGES, INSTITUTES and UNIVERSITIES
An Indian courthouse is possibly the last place you would associate with casual behaviour. The usually buzzing corridors suddenly go silent, lawyers in black coats make way as the court staff emerges with a mace in hand, followed by the judge. People perched on both sides of the walkway convey their respects with folded hands.
But Justice K. Chandru of the Madras High Court is in a different league altogether. It is exactly 1.30 pm, i.e lunch recess, and he exits court hall no. 24. The exit is anything but ceremonial ' the door hurriedly opens and a court staff comes out with some case papers in his hand. Following him comes Justice K. Chandru, his gait casual and fast. The scene is conspicuous by the sudden fall of eerie silence and the absence of the mace bearer. In the words of someone who almost lives in the corridors of the court, 'As soon as Justice Chandru became a judge, he did away with this colonial mace carrying. He also notified the advocates not to address him as 'My lord' in the court.' For a man who has spent his whole life fighting against oppression, doing away with stuff reminiscent of colonial hangover has come naturally. Justice K.Chandru has attained an iconic stature as a people's judge, loved by the masses and hated by the establishment. This is not new to him. In his three-decade-long career as an advocate, he was loved by the masses and was a thorn in the flesh of the establishment.
Not only has Justice Chandru been objective and impeccably righteous as a judge, he has created sort of a record by delivering as many as 54,000 verdicts in four years as a single judge and part of benches. Looking at the speed at which the Indian judicial process usually moves, Justice Chandru seems to be light years ahead of his times.
On June 9, 2010, a crowd had gathered in court hall number 24 of the Madras High Court. It rained judgments on that day. Justice Chandru delivered 75 verdicts. To meet the need of advocates, eager to know the outcome of their cases, three extra notice boards were put up where the results were announced. Justic Uninterrupted In April alone, Justice Chandru pronounced 1,780 judgments. The average tally of this judge has been over 1,500 verdicts for every month this year. As in charge of appeal suits, he has asked the staff to list at least 100 cases daily. Legal experts are often left dumbfounded as many judges can't even deliver 54,000 judgments in their whole tenure.
Justice Chandru has always been a rebel. Even when he was very young, he always had the motivation to fight for a cause. In his college days, he was running the Students' Socialist Forum (SSF) before joining the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] where he and his friends were absorbed into the SFI (Students federation of India).
As an active member of SFI, he travelled across the length and breadth of the country. He participated in a huge rally in Chennai demanding minimum wages for farmers. When studying in Loyola College, he was expelled from the college in the second year as he joined a strike to protest against irregularities in the college hostel.
He joined to continue his third year of studies in the Madras Christian College (MCC), during which he faced 15 days of imprisonment and expulsion from the college. The reason was that he had spoken at a meeting organised by the Madras Rubber Factory (MRF) employees who were locked in a dispute with the management. As the MRF management members were in the MCC board, expulsion was a natural consequence.
A small incident can be mentioned here. Those days P. Chidamabram, now the Union home minister, wrote a story on students leaders of Chennai in a quarterly magazine. He wrote about Chandru as a student leader in his formative years as 'innocent of any ideology'. Chandru said in a rare interview to the Dalit Murasu magazine when he was an advocate in 2004, 'I was shocked to read it and was angry. I wanted to change this opinion and started to read books on politics and started friendship with intellectuals." Later life presented some occasions in which Chidambaram and Chandru would work together in public interest.
It was a turning point in Chandru's life. In 1972, in Annamalai University, protesting students were lathicharged by the police. After this, Udayakumar, a B.A. (Mathematics) second year student's dead body was found in a water tank in the university. As an active leader of SFI, K. Chandru was instrumental in organising statewide protests condemning the incident. It forced the government to set up an enquiry commission under the Madras High Court Additional Judge N.S. Ramasamy. The then government held the view that the dead body was not of Udayakumar. But Chandru was struggling hard to establish the fact before the commission. Noticing young Chandru's skills, Justice Ramasamy sent a word to him through his staff. The message was clear: Chandru should study law.
So Chandru joined the Madras Law College which during those days was an SFI citadel. After finishing law in 1976, he started practicing in the Madras High Court. He joined the Rao and Reddy law firm under Barrister V.G. Rao who was a London-educated leftist and a famous trade unionist in Chennai. Chandru was associated with the firm for eight years.
Chandru's name became famous even before he completed one year of practice when he appeared on behalf of his party, the CPI(M) before the Justice Ismayil Commission that was formed to inquire into the atrocities committed on political leaders arrested in MISA during Emergency in Chennai Central Jail. (The political leaders included M. Karunanidhi's son M.K. Stalin who was brutally attacked inside the jail along with other senior DMK leaders). Justic Uninterrupted While practising as an advocate, Chandru was always there for every labour union inside and outside the court. Human rights, fight against oppression were the issues close to his heart. In 1990, he wrote in Junior Vikatan, a Tamil weekly. It was titled Order.. Order... He wrote for 28 weeks. The writings shattered the general perception that those connected with the judicial process are above public Scrutiny.
In 1988, on a Pongal festival day, Chandru was expelled from the CPI(M). Thiagu, leader of Tamil Desiya Viduthalai Iyakkam, a pro-Tamil organisation and once a member of CPI(M) remembers the incident: 'Like everyone in Tamil Nadu, Chandru was also drawn towards the Sri Lankan Tamil issue. Chandru conducted meetings and protests condemning the genocide and economic blockade imposed on the northern part of Sri Lanka. When he participated in a human chain, Chandru was asked for an explanation. He simply replied: 'Marxism and love for humanity are not two different things'. The party cited the following in the party newspaper as reason for his expulsion: 'Chandru's behaviour was anti-labour'. Chandru was upset. He told me, 'In what anti-labour activities was I involved? They should have spelt out the real reason that is my expression of solidarity with the Sri Lankan Tamils'."
Thiagu, who had spent many years in jail for ultra-left activities, had the opportunity to see Chandru from close quarters. 'In jail and outside, Chandru would always come to fight for me in the court. He would refuse any money and would spend from his own pocket to pay even the court fee etc. Not only for me, for every social activist, he appeared free of cost. Whether it was Nedumaran, Vaiko, Suba.Veerapandian, Kalyani... in all cases ranging from pension to Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), he has appeared free.'
Chandru has been a staunch unionist. He had a policy that he would never appear on behalf of any employer against employees. When Thiagu started a Tamil medium school, he asked Chandru to be his legal adviser. Chandru refused saying that in future if there was a problem between Thiagu and his school teachers, he would be with the employees only. Justic Uninterrupted As an editorial team member of Lawyers Collective, a journal from Mumbai, he wrote many articles in English. Noted among them was one in which he wrote about the irregularities committed by Supreme Court Judge V. Ramaswamy while the latter was the Chief Justice of the Chandigarh High Court. After this article, the movement for impeachment of Ramasamy started. Chandru spearheaded it along with noted advocate Indira Jaisingh.
When POTA was invoked on Vaiko, Pazha. Nedumaran and few others, Chandru took up their cases and got some important judgments. He refused fees. A friend of Chandru told me how, after his release, a political leader arranged a special dinner for Chandru in which the leader himself served Chandru food.
When Justice Subashan Reddy was the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court, he wanted to start a new high court bench in Madurai. People from the southern parts of Tamil Nadu had to travel for 14 hours to reach Madras High Court. It was for their benefit that the bench was mooted. The advocates in Chennai opposed the move for obvious reasons. Justice Subhashan reddy held a public hearing to know the opinion of lawyers. People remember Chandru as the one and only advocate from Chennai to speak in favour of starting the bench in Madurai.
''Chandru sir was the tallest figure in the Bar. After his elevation as a judge, his place in the bar is still unfulfilled... there remains a huge vacuum,' reminisces an advocate. How did lawyer Chandru become a judge? One has to hear this in the words of the man himself. He has recorded this in his preface to a Tamil book on Justice V.R.Krishna Iyer written by Mehbood Batcha. 'Everyone knows that Kusela, (poor friend of Lord Krishna) went to Dwaraka to meet Lord Krishna seeking help. But in my case, this Krishna, leaving aside all his pride and self-respect, asked a Chief Justice to elevate me as a judge. I was there to hear it all. It is my duty to record this: In a function, a Chief Justice and V.R. Krishna Iyer participated. While the chief justice spoke, he praised Krishna Iyer. He called Krishna Iyer Lord Krishna and described him as his Guru. After his speech, he came and sat by Krishna Iyer. Krishna Iyer asked the Chief Justice, 'You said that I am your guru. Where is guru Dakshina?' The Chief Justice replied, 'you can ask for whatever you want.' Immediately, Krishna Iyer said, 'Elevate Chandru as a judge.' Here Lord krishna became a sevak. It happened in my life.' The official residence of Justice Chandru too has an interesting story. Few years back, a security person of a judge shot himself in this house. After this incident, no one wanted to live there. It was Chandru who broke the norms and started living there. Chandru has refused the police security provided to judges.
Mehboob Batcha of Soco Trust in Madurai, a longtime associate of K. Chandru, narrates an incident as a testimony to Chandru's simplicity and humility. 'Last year Justice Chandru came here for a marriage. He did not use any official vehicle from the Madrurai High Court bench. He travelled in an auto to the bus stand from where he took a government bus to meet a friend in Theni. He was traveling around these places for three days, all in government buses. Think of a high court judge travelling in public transport...Only Justice Chandru can do this.'
Justice K. Chandru was elevated as a Madras High Court Judge on July 31, 2006. He became a permanent judge in 2009. On the day of his swearing November 09, 2009, he created a flutter by submitting the assets and liabilities of him in a sealed cover to Madras High Court Chief Justice H.N. Gokhale. 'I want to create a convention of judges declaring their assets on the date of their swearing in,' he informed a gathering of judges, court officers and advocates. In fact, K. Chandru was among the first three high court judges of India to have submitted their assets.
As per the statement of Union law minster Veerappa Moily, 30 million cases are pending in India. Going by the current pace, 400 years are required for resolution of all these cases.
In Tamil Nadu alone, as of December 31, 2009, there were 15,26,287 cases pending in all courts of which the share of Madras High Court alone stood at 4,31,390. One man defies numbers and that is Justice K. Chandru who has contributed much to decrease the backlog by speedy disposal of cases. The pending number of cases, when compared to 2008's figures, has decreased for the first time after a number of years by 30,000.
When Chandru registered himself as a lawyer in 1976, Ms Mythili Sivaraman, a well-known women's movement activist, gave a note to K. Chandru. The words written in the note were: 'Mr dear Chandru, I don't want you to be a lawyer. Be a spokesperson of the people.' Lawyer K. Chandru followed it to the hilt. And as a judge, he continues to do so.
AN APPRECIATION
Justice K. Chandru ' the name is brief but his heart is large. As a judge, he is a liberal with large commitments. I know him for years when I was in Chennai. He is a young man of integrity with commitment to leftist principles. He is so independent that he broke away from the CPI(M) because of his fundamental disagreement on one principle. This is true ideological independence. Justice Chandru's commitment to the poor made him an effective instrument of legal aid to the poor. His conviction, as far as I know, is rich and profound, bound as he is to the ideology of swaraj in all its implications. As our country is going colonial and more ably downhill, weakening its spirit of swaraj, we need more Justice Chandrus so that the Constitution, which declares, as a fundamental pledge, to every citizen the delivery of justice, social, economic and political, is to be fulfilled. Yes, this country needs more Chandrus who remain loyal to the basic structure of our Republic in being socialist and secular and absolutely independent in its performance.
Independent, industrious, intelligent, hostile to arrears, happy with early disposals in plural numbers and facile to giving access to the humblest, he is a forensic success in justice, justices and justicing. Carry on Chandru. I salute you as a fine judge.
August 9, 2010
justice v.r. krishna iyer,
Former Judge,
Supreme Court of India
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
An Indian courthouse is possibly the last place you would associate with casual behaviour. The usually buzzing corridors suddenly go silent, lawyers in black coats make way as the court staff emerges with a mace in hand, followed by the judge. People perched on both sides of the walkway convey their respects with folded hands.
But Justice K. Chandru of the Madras High Court is in a different league altogether. It is exactly 1.30 pm, i.e lunch recess, and he exits court hall no. 24. The exit is anything but ceremonial ' the door hurriedly opens and a court staff comes out with some case papers in his hand. Following him comes Justice K. Chandru, his gait casual and fast. The scene is conspicuous by the sudden fall of eerie silence and the absence of the mace bearer. In the words of someone who almost lives in the corridors of the court, 'As soon as Justice Chandru became a judge, he did away with this colonial mace carrying. He also notified the advocates not to address him as 'My lord' in the court.' For a man who has spent his whole life fighting against oppression, doing away with stuff reminiscent of colonial hangover has come naturally. Justice K.Chandru has attained an iconic stature as a people's judge, loved by the masses and hated by the establishment. This is not new to him. In his three-decade-long career as an advocate, he was loved by the masses and was a thorn in the flesh of the establishment.
Not only has Justice Chandru been objective and impeccably righteous as a judge, he has created sort of a record by delivering as many as 54,000 verdicts in four years as a single judge and part of benches. Looking at the speed at which the Indian judicial process usually moves, Justice Chandru seems to be light years ahead of his times.
On June 9, 2010, a crowd had gathered in court hall number 24 of the Madras High Court. It rained judgments on that day. Justice Chandru delivered 75 verdicts. To meet the need of advocates, eager to know the outcome of their cases, three extra notice boards were put up where the results were announced. Justic Uninterrupted In April alone, Justice Chandru pronounced 1,780 judgments. The average tally of this judge has been over 1,500 verdicts for every month this year. As in charge of appeal suits, he has asked the staff to list at least 100 cases daily. Legal experts are often left dumbfounded as many judges can't even deliver 54,000 judgments in their whole tenure.
Justice Chandru has always been a rebel. Even when he was very young, he always had the motivation to fight for a cause. In his college days, he was running the Students' Socialist Forum (SSF) before joining the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] where he and his friends were absorbed into the SFI (Students federation of India).
As an active member of SFI, he travelled across the length and breadth of the country. He participated in a huge rally in Chennai demanding minimum wages for farmers. When studying in Loyola College, he was expelled from the college in the second year as he joined a strike to protest against irregularities in the college hostel.
He joined to continue his third year of studies in the Madras Christian College (MCC), during which he faced 15 days of imprisonment and expulsion from the college. The reason was that he had spoken at a meeting organised by the Madras Rubber Factory (MRF) employees who were locked in a dispute with the management. As the MRF management members were in the MCC board, expulsion was a natural consequence.
A small incident can be mentioned here. Those days P. Chidamabram, now the Union home minister, wrote a story on students leaders of Chennai in a quarterly magazine. He wrote about Chandru as a student leader in his formative years as 'innocent of any ideology'. Chandru said in a rare interview to the Dalit Murasu magazine when he was an advocate in 2004, 'I was shocked to read it and was angry. I wanted to change this opinion and started to read books on politics and started friendship with intellectuals." Later life presented some occasions in which Chidambaram and Chandru would work together in public interest.
It was a turning point in Chandru's life. In 1972, in Annamalai University, protesting students were lathicharged by the police. After this, Udayakumar, a B.A. (Mathematics) second year student's dead body was found in a water tank in the university. As an active leader of SFI, K. Chandru was instrumental in organising statewide protests condemning the incident. It forced the government to set up an enquiry commission under the Madras High Court Additional Judge N.S. Ramasamy. The then government held the view that the dead body was not of Udayakumar. But Chandru was struggling hard to establish the fact before the commission. Noticing young Chandru's skills, Justice Ramasamy sent a word to him through his staff. The message was clear: Chandru should study law.
So Chandru joined the Madras Law College which during those days was an SFI citadel. After finishing law in 1976, he started practicing in the Madras High Court. He joined the Rao and Reddy law firm under Barrister V.G. Rao who was a London-educated leftist and a famous trade unionist in Chennai. Chandru was associated with the firm for eight years.
Chandru's name became famous even before he completed one year of practice when he appeared on behalf of his party, the CPI(M) before the Justice Ismayil Commission that was formed to inquire into the atrocities committed on political leaders arrested in MISA during Emergency in Chennai Central Jail. (The political leaders included M. Karunanidhi's son M.K. Stalin who was brutally attacked inside the jail along with other senior DMK leaders). Justic Uninterrupted While practising as an advocate, Chandru was always there for every labour union inside and outside the court. Human rights, fight against oppression were the issues close to his heart. In 1990, he wrote in Junior Vikatan, a Tamil weekly. It was titled Order.. Order... He wrote for 28 weeks. The writings shattered the general perception that those connected with the judicial process are above public Scrutiny.
In 1988, on a Pongal festival day, Chandru was expelled from the CPI(M). Thiagu, leader of Tamil Desiya Viduthalai Iyakkam, a pro-Tamil organisation and once a member of CPI(M) remembers the incident: 'Like everyone in Tamil Nadu, Chandru was also drawn towards the Sri Lankan Tamil issue. Chandru conducted meetings and protests condemning the genocide and economic blockade imposed on the northern part of Sri Lanka. When he participated in a human chain, Chandru was asked for an explanation. He simply replied: 'Marxism and love for humanity are not two different things'. The party cited the following in the party newspaper as reason for his expulsion: 'Chandru's behaviour was anti-labour'. Chandru was upset. He told me, 'In what anti-labour activities was I involved? They should have spelt out the real reason that is my expression of solidarity with the Sri Lankan Tamils'."
Thiagu, who had spent many years in jail for ultra-left activities, had the opportunity to see Chandru from close quarters. 'In jail and outside, Chandru would always come to fight for me in the court. He would refuse any money and would spend from his own pocket to pay even the court fee etc. Not only for me, for every social activist, he appeared free of cost. Whether it was Nedumaran, Vaiko, Suba.Veerapandian, Kalyani... in all cases ranging from pension to Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), he has appeared free.'
Chandru has been a staunch unionist. He had a policy that he would never appear on behalf of any employer against employees. When Thiagu started a Tamil medium school, he asked Chandru to be his legal adviser. Chandru refused saying that in future if there was a problem between Thiagu and his school teachers, he would be with the employees only. Justic Uninterrupted As an editorial team member of Lawyers Collective, a journal from Mumbai, he wrote many articles in English. Noted among them was one in which he wrote about the irregularities committed by Supreme Court Judge V. Ramaswamy while the latter was the Chief Justice of the Chandigarh High Court. After this article, the movement for impeachment of Ramasamy started. Chandru spearheaded it along with noted advocate Indira Jaisingh.
When POTA was invoked on Vaiko, Pazha. Nedumaran and few others, Chandru took up their cases and got some important judgments. He refused fees. A friend of Chandru told me how, after his release, a political leader arranged a special dinner for Chandru in which the leader himself served Chandru food.
When Justice Subashan Reddy was the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court, he wanted to start a new high court bench in Madurai. People from the southern parts of Tamil Nadu had to travel for 14 hours to reach Madras High Court. It was for their benefit that the bench was mooted. The advocates in Chennai opposed the move for obvious reasons. Justice Subhashan reddy held a public hearing to know the opinion of lawyers. People remember Chandru as the one and only advocate from Chennai to speak in favour of starting the bench in Madurai.
''Chandru sir was the tallest figure in the Bar. After his elevation as a judge, his place in the bar is still unfulfilled... there remains a huge vacuum,' reminisces an advocate. How did lawyer Chandru become a judge? One has to hear this in the words of the man himself. He has recorded this in his preface to a Tamil book on Justice V.R.Krishna Iyer written by Mehbood Batcha. 'Everyone knows that Kusela, (poor friend of Lord Krishna) went to Dwaraka to meet Lord Krishna seeking help. But in my case, this Krishna, leaving aside all his pride and self-respect, asked a Chief Justice to elevate me as a judge. I was there to hear it all. It is my duty to record this: In a function, a Chief Justice and V.R. Krishna Iyer participated. While the chief justice spoke, he praised Krishna Iyer. He called Krishna Iyer Lord Krishna and described him as his Guru. After his speech, he came and sat by Krishna Iyer. Krishna Iyer asked the Chief Justice, 'You said that I am your guru. Where is guru Dakshina?' The Chief Justice replied, 'you can ask for whatever you want.' Immediately, Krishna Iyer said, 'Elevate Chandru as a judge.' Here Lord krishna became a sevak. It happened in my life.' The official residence of Justice Chandru too has an interesting story. Few years back, a security person of a judge shot himself in this house. After this incident, no one wanted to live there. It was Chandru who broke the norms and started living there. Chandru has refused the police security provided to judges.
Mehboob Batcha of Soco Trust in Madurai, a longtime associate of K. Chandru, narrates an incident as a testimony to Chandru's simplicity and humility. 'Last year Justice Chandru came here for a marriage. He did not use any official vehicle from the Madrurai High Court bench. He travelled in an auto to the bus stand from where he took a government bus to meet a friend in Theni. He was traveling around these places for three days, all in government buses. Think of a high court judge travelling in public transport...Only Justice Chandru can do this.'
Justice K. Chandru was elevated as a Madras High Court Judge on July 31, 2006. He became a permanent judge in 2009. On the day of his swearing November 09, 2009, he created a flutter by submitting the assets and liabilities of him in a sealed cover to Madras High Court Chief Justice H.N. Gokhale. 'I want to create a convention of judges declaring their assets on the date of their swearing in,' he informed a gathering of judges, court officers and advocates. In fact, K. Chandru was among the first three high court judges of India to have submitted their assets.
As per the statement of Union law minster Veerappa Moily, 30 million cases are pending in India. Going by the current pace, 400 years are required for resolution of all these cases.
In Tamil Nadu alone, as of December 31, 2009, there were 15,26,287 cases pending in all courts of which the share of Madras High Court alone stood at 4,31,390. One man defies numbers and that is Justice K. Chandru who has contributed much to decrease the backlog by speedy disposal of cases. The pending number of cases, when compared to 2008's figures, has decreased for the first time after a number of years by 30,000.
When Chandru registered himself as a lawyer in 1976, Ms Mythili Sivaraman, a well-known women's movement activist, gave a note to K. Chandru. The words written in the note were: 'Mr dear Chandru, I don't want you to be a lawyer. Be a spokesperson of the people.' Lawyer K. Chandru followed it to the hilt. And as a judge, he continues to do so.
AN APPRECIATION
Justice K. Chandru ' the name is brief but his heart is large. As a judge, he is a liberal with large commitments. I know him for years when I was in Chennai. He is a young man of integrity with commitment to leftist principles. He is so independent that he broke away from the CPI(M) because of his fundamental disagreement on one principle. This is true ideological independence. Justice Chandru's commitment to the poor made him an effective instrument of legal aid to the poor. His conviction, as far as I know, is rich and profound, bound as he is to the ideology of swaraj in all its implications. As our country is going colonial and more ably downhill, weakening its spirit of swaraj, we need more Justice Chandrus so that the Constitution, which declares, as a fundamental pledge, to every citizen the delivery of justice, social, economic and political, is to be fulfilled. Yes, this country needs more Chandrus who remain loyal to the basic structure of our Republic in being socialist and secular and absolutely independent in its performance.
Independent, industrious, intelligent, hostile to arrears, happy with early disposals in plural numbers and facile to giving access to the humblest, he is a forensic success in justice, justices and justicing. Carry on Chandru. I salute you as a fine judge.
August 9, 2010
justice v.r. krishna iyer,
Former Judge,
Supreme Court of India
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
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Ragging rights and wrongs
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The hunt for hostel and paying guest (PG) accommodation for students
Role of Media in the moulding of youth
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