DY Chandrachud, the Chief Justice of India while dealing with a matter in relation to pertaining with insurance observed and has highlighted that there had been a “marked departure” in the way precedents which were cited in judgements. The CJI stated that while earlier it was common for judges for referring to cases by naming the judge who had authored the judgement and now it is no longer the case. Now by their causetitle, the cases are cited.
However, the courtroom exchange took place when a counsel appearing before the CJI noted that he was quite surprised to see that the division bench had named the judge who had been authored a precedent in its order.
Adding to this, CJI Chandrachud remarked that in the older judgements, I have also noticed in the 1950s and all, in the Letters Patent Appeal, they were being used to say that the said appeal arises from a judgement of Justice JC Shah. Earlier, there has been marked departure and now we are not referring to the name of the judge. It has been stated by the counsel that this could also be a reason why senior lawyers remembered judgements by the judges’ names and not just by the name of the case.
It has also been stated by the CJI DY Chandrachud that I must tell you on a very lighter vein, In fact, I am very impressed by the judgement of a single judge. In one of my judgements, I mentioned the name of the judge. Then the judgement was returned by my colleague otherwise agreeing with it, but a little note was put by my colleague asking should we mention the name of the judge. So this time it was of course in a laudatory way but then it has been deleted. No, the trend is changing, we are not having the name of the judge. In the earlier judgements, you would see that Justice MC Chagla etc would always refer to the name of the judge but no longer.
It was also remarked by the counsel that writing the name of the judge was a very personalised way of referring to judgements.