Mainstream WeeklyThe circulation of a viral video showing Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, performing Ganpati Puja in the company of Chief Justice, Chandrachud, and his wife at the latter’s residence has disturbing implications for the independence of the judiciary and the insulated image of judges manning it.
The Ganpati festival is one of the most popular and pious festivals in Maharashtra. The Chief Justice, being Maharashtrian, has every right to celebrate this festival, but as a head of the judicial branch of the State, he is enjoined to maintain a very crucial distinction between private and public. High public functionaries, least of all the men on whom the stewardship of the judicial branch rests, should refrain from public display of his religious faith. Prime Minister, Modi, is an inglorious exception to this desirable norm and has the penchant and irresistible urge to convert his own puja into a public spectacle. To whom to invite in one