When Emergency was imposed in 1975, 9 High Courts across the country, in probably the finest hour of the Indian judiciary, took a firm stand that even in the face of lawless tyranny, they would uphold the right to life and liberty of the citizenry.
When these cases were appealed to the Supreme Court, what followed was easily the darkest moment in the history of Indian judiciary, as the Supreme Court overturned these verdicts, giving the government legitimacy to detain and shoot dead anyone during Emergency. Even the judges of the High Courts who gave the overturned verdicts were not spared - 16 of them were banished by the Central Government of the day from their “home” high courts to serve their terms in distant parts of the country, far from their families and against their will.
It is perhaps this history that played on the minds of many when news of the transfer of the Uttarakhand High Court Chief Justice KM Joseph to the Andhra Pradesh High Court was made public. The transfer was linked, almost immediately, to the stinging judgement he had delivered against the imposition of President’s Rule in Uttarakhand, setting it aside and calling the deposed CM Harish Rawat to prove his majority on the floor of the legislative assembly. Social media was abuzz with talk of the government penalising an independent-minded judge for having delivered a judgement against it.