Rarely, if ever, do former judges of the Supreme Court raise disturbing questions about their colleagues or the collegium system for choosing judges. However, that is precisely what Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul has done in his forthcoming autobiography ‘Without Fear or Favour’.

What it suggests about former Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud is disquieting, even disillusioning. Kaulwas the senior most puisne judge under Chandrachud. He had known him for four decades and often refers to him as Dhan. This is why what he says needs to be attentively listened to.

Kaul writes that a Prevention of Money Laundering Act case in 2023 “drove a wedge between the Chief Justice and me”. He blames “the concentration of administrative power in the office of the Chief Justice, exercised without adequate checks and, at times, under pressures that had nothing to do with the merits of the case or the competence of the judge.”

Here’s the nub of the story. “One morning I was called to the Chief Justice’s chamber, where Justice Khanna also happened to be present along with him and........

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