Recovering Lost Ground

Abstract

The impact of the excesses of the Emergency was felt long after it was officially terminated. This essay uncovers how the Emergency impacted judicial appointments. The author discusses how the 1980s have been characterized, in the judgment in the NJAC Case, as a decade where judicial independence was imperilled due to executive interference in the matter of appointments. The author sets the record straight by shedding light on the 1980s, particularly pertaining to the judgment in SP Gupta v. Union of India (1981 Supp SCC 87) (First Judges’ Case). In this essay, the author puts up a defence of this judgment, which is largely seen in academic scholarship as a genuflection of the judges before the executive. With the help of anecdotal examples, this essay tries to untangle the case of the curious eighties, making the larger point that it is a decade not amenable to easy typifying.