Last word of court printed in judgment, whatever said just an observation: Ex-CJI

The former CJI was replying to a query on his observations made in court on May 21, 2022 in a hearing on the Gyanvapi mosque cases where he said that a survey didn’t violate the Places of Worship Act, 1991. He was speaking at the Times Network India Economic Conclave.

Justice Chandrachud’s defence of his observations in court came hours after the Supreme Court barred civil courts across the country from registering fresh suits challenging the ownership and title of any place of worship or ordering surveys of disputed religious places until further orders, and made it clear that no “effective” orders can be passed.

“Unless the last word of the court is printed in the judgment, whatever said by the court is just an observation for that moment. It has no precedential value. It cannot be used in any future proceedings,” he said. “If you prevent judges from engaging in a free-flowing conversation, you are preventing the truth from coming out.”

Justice Chandrachud, while hearing an appeal against the Varanasi district court ordering a survey of the Gyanvapi mosque in May last year, had said: “Suppose there is an agiary (fire temple of Zoroastrians). Suppose there is a Cross in another segment of the agiary in the same complex… (The) Act applies to it. Does the presence of the agiary make the Cross an agiary? Does the presence of a Cross make the agiary a place of Christian worship?”

The bench had observed: “Therefore, this hybrid character, forget this arena of contestation, is not unknown in India. What does the Act therefore recognise? That the presence of a Cross will not make an article of Christian faith an article of Zoroastrian faith, nor does the presence of an article of Zoroastrian faith make it an article of Christian faith.”

“But the ascertainment of a religious character of a place, as a processual instrument, may not necessarily fall foul of the provisions of Sections 3 and 4 (of the Act)… These are matters which we will not hazard an opinion in our order at all,” the bench had observed.