Amit Shah’s Assault on Constitutional Morality and Judicial Independence |
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Is it acceptable in the world’s largest democracy for the Home Minister to virtually brand a former Supreme Court judge an ‘Urban Naxal’? Can a constitutional adjudicator be subjected to public vilification for discharging his judicial duties? And when the Supreme Court strikes down a state policy, is it legitimate for the political executive to condemn not just the verdict, but the judge himself?
These questions have acquired urgency following the parliamentary debate of March 30, 2026, where Amit Shah launched an extraordinary attack on former Supreme Court judge B. Sudershan Reddy. The remarks have reopened a fundamental debate about judicial independence, constitutional morality, and the limits of political criticism.
At the centre of this controversy lies Justice Reddy’s role in the landmark Nandini Sundar v. State of Chhattisgarh (2011), better known as the Salwa Judum case.
This is not a case of a judge entering politics and inviting scrutiny. Justice Reddy is not a career politician but a jurist of long standing. His recent vice-presidential candidacy – backed by the opposition INDIA coalition – cannot retrospectively delegitimise his judicial record. The question, therefore, is stark: is his “offence” the acceptance of a political nomination, or the delivery of a constitutionally grounded judgment?
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.
Delivered on July 5, 2011, the judgment in Nandini Sundar v. State of Chhattisgarh addressed a foundational question: can the state outsource its monopoly on violence to civilians?
Under the Salwa Judum programme, the Chhattisgarh government had armed adivasi youth as Special Police Officers (SPOs) to combat the Maoist insurgency. The Supreme Court bench of Justices Reddy and S.S. Nijjar found this policy unconstitutional.
Their ruling rested on several key principles:
State monopoly on violence: The Constitution does not permit the state to delegate coercive power to untrained civilians.
Violation of fundamental rights: The policy infringed Articles 14 and 21 – i.e. equality before law and the right to life with dignity – by placing vulnerable citizens in harm’s way.
Failure of state duty: By arming adivasi youth, the state abdicated its obligation to protect them, effectively exposing them to retaliatory violence.
Immediate corrective action: The court ordered the disbanding of Salwa Judum and the withdrawal of firearms distributed to civilians.
Far from being an act of judicial overreach, the judgment reaffirmed a core constitutional principle: the state cannot convert its citizens into instruments of war. The welfare of the people – salus populi suprema lex – remains the highest law.
To characterise such a ruling as subversive is not merely inaccurate; it is a distortion of constitutional reasoning.
Shah’s attack on Justice Reddy rests on a troubling premise: that the Supreme Court’s judgment contributed to subsequent violence in Chhattisgarh.
Besides being factually incorrect, this argument is constitutionally untenable. Judicial review exists precisely to test whether executive action conforms to the Constitution. When a court finds that state policy violates fundamental rights, intervention is not optional. It is obligatory.
To hold the judiciary responsible for the supposed adverse consequences of an unconstitutional policy is to invert constitutional logic. Insurgency arises from complex socio-political factors; it cannot be simplistically attributed to a judicial verdict.
More importantly, such reasoning undermines the very purpose of constitutional courts. If judges are to fear political backlash for enforcing constitutional limits, judicial independence becomes illusory.
The Indian constitutional framework rests on a delicate balance between the legislature, executive, and judiciary. Parliamentary debate is vital, but it must not degenerate into attacks that erode institutional legitimacy.
Criticism of judgments is both valid and necessary in a democracy. But criticism must engage with legal reasoning and not descend into ideological denunciation. When a former Supreme Court judge is branded in pejorative terms for a judgment delivered in the exercise of constitutional authority, it signals a dangerous erosion of norms.
The Salwa Judum verdict did not weaken the state; it clarified the constitutional boundaries within which the state must operate. The fight against insurgency, the court held, must be conducted through lawful means, by trained forces accountable to constitutional standards.
The jurisprudential legacy of Justice Reddy
Born in 1948, Justice Reddy began his legal career in 1971 and quickly established himself as a formidable constitutional lawyer. Elevated to the Andhra Pradesh high court in 1995 and to the Supreme Court in 2007, his tenure was marked by a consistent emphasis on fundamental rights, transparency, and access to justice.
As executive chairman of the National Legal Services Authority, he strengthened mechanisms to make legal aid accessible to the most marginalised.
His jurisprudence reflects a clear commitment: the Constitution is not an abstract document but a living guarantee of dignity and equality. To retrospectively impugn such a record on political grounds is neither fair nor institutionally prudent.
India’s democratic history is replete with instances of judges, academics, and public figures being nominated to high constitutional offices. Such transitions do not invalidate their prior contributions.
What is at stake here is not political disagreement, but the vocabulary of public discourse. To casually lump a former Supreme Court judge in the amorphous category of ‘Urban Naxal’ for a constitutional ruling is to cross a line that safeguards institutional respect.
Justice Reddy has also engaged deeply with the philosophical underpinnings of the Indian Constitution. Rejecting the simplistic claim that it is merely a ‘borrowed’ document, he has echoed Dr B.R. Ambedkar in emphasising that constitutional borrowing is a sign of intellectual openness, not weakness.
The Objectives Resolution introduced by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1946 laid the foundation for the Preamble and articulated a vision of a federal, democratic republic. These ideas were not imported wholesale but adapted to Indian realities.
Invoking Mahatma Gandhi’s famous metaphor of a house open to winds from all cultures, Justice Reddy has argued that the Constitution is a synthesis of indigenous traditions and global democratic principles.
Attempts to pit Ambedkar against Gandhi, or to delegitimise constitutional pluralism, diminish rather than enrich democratic discourse.
A judgment for posterity
The Salwa Judum judgment remains one of the most significant pronouncements on internal security and human rights in India because it established that security policies must operate within constitutional limits, tribal communities cannot be weaponised as instruments of state policy, and that the State’s duty to protect citizens is non-delegable.
For these reasons, the judgment is widely regarded as an exemplar of what may be called “constitutional humanism.”
Justice Reddy’s career embodies the principles essential to a functioning constitutional democracy: independence of thought, fidelity to fundamental rights and the courage to decide difficult cases.
Political disagreement with judicial decisions is legitimate. But questioning the integrity of judges for performing their constitutional role sets a dangerous precedent.
In a republic governed by law, institutions must hold each other accountable while maintaining mutual respect. The strength of Indian democracy lies not only in electoral outcomes but in the enduring authority of its Constitution, and in the independence of the courts that uphold it.
M. Sridhar Acharyulu is a former commissioner, Central Information Commission.
This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.