Former Supreme Court judge Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul’s forthcoming memoir says that ex-Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud was “too deferential” to the central government on judicial appointments. The allegation is drawn from a pre-publication manuscript of Kaul’s book, reported in media reviews before publication.
Several outlets report that Kaul frames the issue around how the judiciary engages with the executive when appointing judges through the collegium process. The memoir reportedly distinguishes between seeking the government’s views after a collegium decision versus obtaining what Kaul portrays as “pre-approval” before deliberations, warning that early executive involvement could affect judicial independence.
Coverage also ties the claim to broader concerns about transparency and the judiciary’s institutional autonomy. The reports differ mainly in what additional biographical and incident-level detail they include, and in how directly political figures use the claim. Overall, they rely on the same underlying pre-publication-material accounts attributed to reviews of the manuscript.
