Chandrachud was replying to a question at the end of a keynote address during the ‘11th Annual Conference of the Berkeley Centre on Comparative Equality and Anti-Discrimination’.
Bengaluru: Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud on Sunday said that trial court judges were increasingly playing it safe by not granting bail on important issues of serious crimes and that there should be a sense of robust common sense while dealing with such cases.
The CJI made the remarks while answering a question following his keynote address at the 11th Annual Conference of the Berkeley Centre for Comparative Equality and Anti-discrimination Law on ‘Is there Hope for Equality Law?’ jointly organised by Bengaluru’s National Law School of India University and the Oxford Human Rights Hub.
“Those who should get bail in the trial courts and don’t get it there invariably move the high courts,” the CJI said. “People who should be getting bail in the high courts will not necessarily get it, resulting in them having to move the Supreme Court. This delay compounds the problem of those who are facing arbitrary arrests.”
“The problem today is that,” Justice Chandrachud said, “any grant of relief by trial judges is seen with a degree of suspicion.
“It means that the trial judges increasingly are playing it safe by not granting bail on important issues of serious crimes. The judges need to have a sense of robust common sense. Now, unless we, therefore, separate the grains from the chaff in criminal jurisprudence, it’s very unlikely that we will have just solutions and to allow for decision-makers to separate the grain from the chaff, it’s important that we also place a great deal of trust,” he added.
Explaining why most of the cases should not have come to the Supreme Court, the CJI said: “The reason why we are prioritising bail is to send this message across the nation that those at the most incipient levels of the decision-making process have to do their duties.”
During his keynote address, the CJI noted that equality is a guarantee which requires us to pay a constant premium.
“We pay this premium by guarding even the slightest erosion of human dignity and equality,” the CJI said. “After all the equalities we cherish today were not achieved easily. Equality is a layered concept that borrows from morality, politics, sociology and law. From a legal standpoint, equality produces legal rights and anti-discrimination measures. In other words, the law produced both positive and negative aspects of equality.”
Exploring the emerging themes in the equality law, Justice Chandrachud said it was important to address the profound intersection of climate change and legal principles of equality.
“Climate change represents a profound challenge, manifesting as long-term shifts in temperature and weather patterns that affect all of us. However, its impacts are unevenly distributed, varying significantly based on geographical location, socio-economic status, and individual circumstances.
“For instance, in South Asia, affluent urban residents may experience climate change differently than those living in vulnerable rural areas. In India, the disparities are evident. Residents in upscale neighbourhoods of cities like Mumbai may face flooding or extreme heat differently than those in impoverished coastal villages,” the CJI said.
Ensuring climate justice requires recognising these differential impacts and actively involving affected communities in decision-making processes, the CJI said adding that such a participatory approach can foster more effective and equitable climate policies that truly reflect the needs and experiences of those most impacted.
While acknowledging the benefits of Artificial Intelligence, the CJI also underscored how technology can also be misused, providing “novel and powerful tools for manipulative, exploitative, and social control practices”.
“Another aspect in which equality law has intersected is in the use of AI and technology law,” Justice Chandrachud said.
“When dealing with AI systems, we must ask where the data originates from and what biases it might harbour. Understanding the sources of our data is paramount in using AI systems that are fair and inclusive. Indirect discrimination can arise from seemingly neutral policies or algorithms that disproportionately affect specific groups, undermining their rights and protections,” he added.
