Comment on the relationship between M.C. Chagla and Jawaharlal Nehru.
Answers
IN December 1949, the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court, M.C. Chagla, did something that would be considered unthinkable today: he declined an offer to be elevated to the Supreme Court of India, preferring to remain a High Court Chief Justice. Against the backdrop of the recent events that have lowered the public image of the Supreme Court, Chagla’s decision reminds us that the Supreme Court of India should not be considered the best court in the country merely because it is India’s highest appellate court. In the winter of 1949, the Chief Justice of the Federal Court of India, Sir Harilal Kania, was preparing his court for a radical new beginning. For nearly a hundred years since 1858, India had been governed under a series of Constitutions enacted by the British Parliament. Despite becoming independent in 1947, India was still a British dominion then, regulated by the last of these Constitutions, the Government of India Act of 1935. Now, for the first time in India’s history, a new Constitution that had been written entirely by Indians was going to come into being. Kania must have known then that he would soon have to give up his knighthood, because the new Constitution prohibited Indians from receiving knighthoods even though it had long been customary in British India for senior judges such as Kania to be knighted. More importantly, however, India’s new Constitution was also going to replace the Federal Court of India with a new court called the “Supreme Court of India”, and it was with this in mind that Kania wrote a hopeful letter that winter to Chagla, inviting him to become a Supreme Court judge.
“My dear Chagla,” wrote Kania, “The Federal Court has to expand now very soon. I shall like to know whether you will like your name to be considered for an appointment before 26th January 1950.” For historical reasons, the new Constitution was going to come into force on January 26, 1950—a day on which all Federal Court judges would automatically become Supreme Court judges and the Federal Court would become the Supreme Court