When a future Chief Justice of India invited me for an “adda”: A deeply personal evaluation of the Khanna Court

It was mid 2017. I received a message that I must meet Justice Sanjiv Khanna, and that too at his residence. I must confess that I was a bit nervous. I had my reasons. Justice Khanna was completely out of syllabus for Delhi lawyers who are used to judges being social and almost familial. He was perhaps the last of the breed that took the rule that “judges must confine themselves to the Ivory Tower” seriously..Justice Khanna was not known to excessively socialise and interact with lawyers, much less by inviting them to his residence. The unsaid and yet widely-known reputation of Justice Sanjiv Khanna being a stickler for rules and not a fan of excessive socialising has stood him in good stead. He scrupulously enforced his boundaries and the Bar and even his colleagues on the Bench grudgingly respected him for that. So you can imagine my shock and awe when I embarked on that journey.Justice Khanna was dressed in kurta-pyjama - another first for me to see him in a sartorial avatar so distant from the normal black robe and coat of the Court. I understood later that he had been assigned a task by his senior colleagues in the High Court Collegium, with a mandate to succeed where they had failed. He was to “persuade” me to give my consent to be appointed as a judge of the Delhi High Court!.When I drove up to his impressive bungalow, which he later told me had also been occupied by his uncle, the legendary HR Khanna, he warmly welcomed me and offered me cut fruits. I tried to duck the fruits, but clearly a judge whose favourite word in court was “no” would not take “no” for an answer from me. By now, it was clear that we were both equally uncomfortable about the exercise. Clearly not one given to small talk, Khanna J straight away came to the point, “Why are you refusing your consent?”I was prepared with my answers and spit out my rehearsed lines. I assumed that he would weigh in. Clearly, I was wrong. He simply said, “Ok. What is your next issue?”That was also simple. I said, “Money.” When Khanna J responded with, “What is your next objection?” it finally dawned upon me that the poor chap was proceeding with our “discussion” in the same manner as he would any case in his court. When he had me finally exhausted and spent with point after point extricated out of me, he responded with, “Now I shall tell you why I do not agree with each of your points.” Khanna J was in “judgment” rather than a “persuasive” mode and, strangely, I found it endearing!.I had imposed a self-imposed vow of silence on this rather unpleasant episode of my life as many of the dramatis personae were still holding constitutional office. With Justice Khanna’s retirement, I feel I can allow myself a relaxation as otherwise many would be deprived of getting to know the “Sanjiv Khanna” unplugged.While that one meeting transformed my life - given that it led to my capitulation and I ended up, against my better judgment, giving my consent for judgeship - it gave me a most precious insight into the mind and psyche of India’s Chief Justice from his responses to each of my well-thought-out “reservations.”I said I was a misfit. His response was, “Sanjoy, my views on almost everything are at variance with yours. I do not agree with anything you say. Yet, I believe that your viewpoint must also be reflected on the bench.” He further said, “You know, I have not even made any suggestions and have gone by my colleagues’ nominations.” While he clearly, in the true Sanjiv Khanna manner, let it be known that I was not his personal choice, what was to be noted was that, in an age where there is a mad rush to “push” one’s own people, Sanjiv Khanna was a man with no personal agenda. Years later, as Chief Justice of India, the two appointments of Justices Vinod Chandran and Joymalya Bagchi would bear testimony to the integrity of this man. Ramrod honesty was a must if someone wanted to pass muster with ramrod-honest Sanjiv Khanna! It was this zeal and his total detachment from the politics of the Bar and the Bench that, under his leadership, the Collegium resorted to bold transfers and a rather public and swift inquiry into the cash-burning scandal that singed the Delhi High Court!.No pandering, pontification or press: CJI Sanjiv Khanna is simply doing his job.However, to borrow from the title of his uncle’s autobiography (Neither Roses Nor Thorns), in the bouquet of roses, some thorns must come Khanna’s way as well. Under his watch, Khanna, true to his character, was completely impartial and the hopes of his parent High Court that he would specially push for filling up the ever-increasing vacancies stood dashed. While Delhi can live with having not received any special treatment from her representative in the Supreme Court, what was rather unfortunate was that Khanna did little to even push the appointments to our High Court recommended by his predecessor and let the government act as it pleased in picking and junking recommendations for judicial appointments to the Delhi High Court!.Back to the adda. I said I had monetary constraints and could not afford to suddenly work on a fixed salary. His response was that money was not everything in life. The satisfaction of making a difference in people’s lives was the biggest reward. There was no end to wanting, but judges had enough allowances and perquisites to live a decent life. In fact, I know that Khanna was a rare judge who, on many occasions, had not even claimed certain perquisites, saying that he had no need for the same. What he did tell me was that a judge must be alert to not abuse these perquisites. “When my children went to college, I made them take the ‘U Special’ and not the High Court car. I have not claimed the full amount of fuel reimbursement and always gone by actuals,” he said to underscore this point. Khanna’s spartan approach and his dislike for pomp and celebration was evident to one and all. While his predecessor was all for ostentation and grandeur and not one for sparing any costs, Khanna was all about cost-cutting, pruning budgets and being low-key..I then said I cannot network and lobby. His response was that he was aghast that I thought that these were skills required for a judicial career. For good measure, he said with his characteristic courtroom excitement, “A judge has no business other than judging. I do not approve at all of this culture of attending conferences and interacting with the media.” This was years before the Ramana Court let loose the public relations machinery, followed soon thereafter by the unprecedented blitzkrieg of the DYC Court! The Khanna Court’s low-key, publicity-shunning approach was indeed a powerful contrast from that of his predecessors, who so relished being in the limelight! It was a welcome relief for most in the Bar and the Bench. Khanna broke the tradition of giving interviews on elevation as CJI and has, in his brief but eventful tenure, shunned media like anything. In fact, the Indian Supreme Court under Khanna’s stewardship had even hosted the Nepal Chief Justice and entered into a Memorandum of Understanding. There was not even a media whisper on this. His predecessor, who had even released a promotional video at the end of his tenure, would have certainly made a media event out of it. Chandrachud J had the knack of making a media spectacle out of things most mundane, such as an outgoing CJI recommending his successor. Under Khanna’s watch, all this and more have happened, though calculatedly away from the media glare. He even abandoned the practice of releasing “Collegium Minutes,” which were actually most farcical as they only paid lip service to transparency. Khanna’s record was surprisingly impacted when the Court, in a rare gesture, decided to pass a full court resolution and publicly mourn the tourists attacked in Pahalgam. This apart, the Khanna Court was not one to play to the gallery!.Justice Khanna, having been a standing counsel and a practitioner on the income tax side before his elevation, was known to be on the conservative side. Getting relief from his Court was always an uphill task for the private legal practitioner. In fact, I used to appear initially before him as a lawyer for employees and private companies and thereafter as an Additional Standing Counsel for the State, so I have experienced the spectrum. Once, he was very angry with me when I confessed to him that I had not read the file as I had a particularly heavy board on that day and I had many state matters. He was aware that I normally came prepared, but he did not hesitate to pull me up and even said, “If you do not assist me then I might have to allow the petition.”While I may have privately muttered that “it might not be that bad an idea,” I coaxed him into adjourning the case by a day. And no surprises—the petition was dismissed the next day with my expected “assistance.” While discretionary relief was an uphill task, what was guaranteed in Khanna’s Court was integrity and respect for the Rule of Law at the highest. Herein lies the contradiction. While ordinarily, Khanna was hesitant to favour a petitioner when many a judge might have been persuaded, if he would sniff out a fundamental breach of law, Khanna would dare where many of his brethren would fear to tread, and he would do so without any regard as to its consequence..To give a few illustrations, it was Justice Khanna who put a spoke in the wheels of the opposition party which attempted to use the Election Commission to whittle down the massive majority of the Delhi government, on the pretext of disqualification for holding the post of “Parliamentary Secretaries.” His verdict prevented legislative instability and perhaps even made it possible for that ruling party to return with a similar majority in the next elections! Another case in point is the proceedings related to the Waqf Act, where he virtually left the government with no option but to capitulate in the form of an undertaking to go easy on the issue of waqf by user and non-Muslim members on the board..Waqf Amendment Act: Centre tells Supreme Court it will not constitute Waqf boards, de-notify existing waqf for now.I would have included the unprecedented order to allow Kejriwal to come out of Tihar and campaign for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections as the third example, but the jury is still out on the nature of preconditions he attached to Kejriwal’s release - preventing him from discharging his constitutional functions as an elected Chief Minister. A retired judge privately described the order to me rather brilliantly as “he imprisoned the Chief Minister and released the person.”.Khanna, however, has also been accused of not being able to completely walk the talk. In Manish Sisodia’s case, after observing in court how flimsy the prosecution’s case was, he proceeded to deny bail and asked him to knock on the doors of justice after six months. Even a first-year student of criminal law would be aware that completion of a criminal trial with hundreds of witnesses and thousands of documents within six months was a most unrealistic ask. A similar back step was witnessed in the Waqf Amendment case, where Khanna extricated himself from hearing even the interim relief issue, citing his limited tenure. On the administrative side, the decision to first put all the documents related to the Justice Yashwant Verma cash-burning inquiry in the public domain, only to refrain from making public the final report, has raised many an eyebrow..That fateful evening, when I had run out of all my reasons, I had decided to use what I thought was my Brahmastra. I said, “Sir, I will never make it to the Supreme Court, as people my age were also being considered who would be senior to me.” This infuriated Justice Khanna the most. “Then you should not consider being a judge at all,” he said, rather agitated. “No one should accept judgeship if he or she is always thinking of where it would ultimately take him or her.” Cooling down a little, he added, almost as if to reassure me that he walked his talk, “Look at me, I knew from the very beginning that I will never make it to the Supreme Court. That has never affected me or my work!”.Many nights after that, destiny ensured that not only did he make it to the Supreme Court, but he also became India’s Chief Justice! In a brief few months, he has demonstrated to the nation and to the world that no matter how brief a tenure, character and integrity always shine and always leave a mark. Many in the Bar and the Bench will agree with me that no single Chief Justice in recent times has made such an impact in restoring the reputation, dignity and glory of India’s apex court as has HR Khanna’s nephew! I wish him the very best for his new innings, with the hope that he pardons me for revealing our “adda” from the past!.Sanjoy Ghose is a Senior Advocate of the Delhi High Court.