The Leader was working through a normal day until a nuclear (political) missile hit his office a little after noon. His aides dashed in and flipped on his chic wall-mounted flat TV. On the screen was a spectacle unseen over seven decades of Independence. Four of the most senior judges of Supreme Court, comprising 80 percent of the Collegium, had risen in open revolt against their “first among equals” – the Chief Justice. Their charges were grave – nepotism and corruption compounded by an utter lack of consensus and leadership plaguing the top man. The Recalcitrant Four said they were doing this with a “heavy heart to save Democracy.”
But for the moment, Democracy had been shoved into grave peril, perhaps its most vulnerable moment after the Emergency of June 1975. The Supreme Court is the Constitution. Any crack in it means Democracy gets unhinged. Simple. More words were not needed to figure out the scale of the crisis.