Justice Kaul Says Chandrachud Urged a Middle Path in PMLA Case, Recounts Rift Over Appointments

A private conversation over a major money laundering case

Former Supreme Court judge Sanjay Kishan Kaul has said that then Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud urged him to take a "middle path" while hearing petitions seeking reconsideration of a judgment that upheld extensive powers under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Kaul also said a case concerning delays in judicial appointments was removed from his bench while he was pressing the Union government to act on pending recommendations.

Kaul described the episodes in an interview with journalist Karan Thapar discussing his memoir, Without Fear or Favour. His account connects two sensitive areas of the Supreme Court's work: deciding challenges to government investigative powers and managing the appointment of judges.

The PMLA dispute concerns the court's July 27, 2022 judgment in Vijay Madanlal Choudhary v. Union of India. That ruling upheld provisions governing arrest, searches, seizure, attachment of property, the burden of proof and strict conditions for bail. Reconsidering those provisions could affect how people investigated for money laundering obtain information about their cases and seek release from custody.

Chandrachud, responding to accounts of the memoir's criticism of judicial appointments, said he had not read the book and would need to understand the passages in context before offering a detailed response. He described his Collegium relationship with Kaul as respectful and said he could not recall Kaul walking out of a meeting.

Kaul's account of pressure over the appointments case comes with an explicit limit: he said he could not say whether the government had prompted its removal from his bench.

What Kaul says happened in the Chief Justice's chambers

Kaul said Chandrachud called him to his chambers while a bench of three judges headed by Kaul was due to hear the PMLA reconsideration petitions. Justice Sanjiv Khanna, another member of that bench, was present, according to Kaul.

Chandrachud tried to persuade him not to proceed, Kaul said, and suggested caution and a middle path if he continued. Kaul recalled responding that he had never taken such an approach in his judicial career and had proceeded whenever he believed hearing a matter was right.

Kaul said withdrawing at that stage would have cast a shadow over his integrity. He and Khanna then went to the courtroom and heard the case. He also alleged that the Union government repeatedly sought adjournments because it wanted the proceedings delayed until after his retirement in December 2023.

The disagreement had begun before that conversation. Kaul said a colleague told him that the petitions had appeared before another bench. When he raised this with Chandrachud, the Chief Justice explained that a judge had ordered related matters consolidated before her bench.

Kaul objected that such a transfer could not have happened without the Chief Justice's concurrence. He said he asked to be told directly if the intention was that he should not hear the cases. Chandrachud subsequently constituted a bench comprising Kaul, Khanna and Justice Bela M. Trivedi. The hearing remained unfinished before Kaul retired.

Why the 2022 judgment matters

The PMLA allows the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to investigate money laundering, broadly the process of handling proceeds of crime so that they appear legitimate. Its powers can affect both a person's liberty and control over property during an investigation.

Justices A.M. Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and C.T. Ravikumar delivered the 2022 judgment. It upheld challenged provisions including Sections 5, 8(4), 15, 17 and 19, covering powers connected with property attachment, possession, summons, searches, seizures and arrest.

Section 24 concerns the burden of proof. In specified circumstances, the law places a burden on the person facing proceedings to rebut a presumption concerning proceeds of crime. This matters because criminal proceedings generally begin with the prosecution having to establish its case.

Section 45 imposes two demanding conditions for bail. Broadly, where the public prosecutor opposes release, the court must have reasonable grounds to believe the accused is not guilty and is unlikely to commit an offence while on bail. These requirements make securing release more difficult than under ordinary bail rules.

The court had struck down an earlier version of the twin conditions in Nikesh Tarachand Shah. Parliament amended the provision in 2018, and the 2022 judgment upheld the amended framework. The reconsideration litigation therefore concerns rules with immediate consequences for people facing arrest, detention and restrictions on property.

Two routes to reconsidering the ruling

Eight review petitions were filed against the 2022 decision. The proceedings are identified as Karti P. Chidambaram v. Directorate of Enforcement, RP(Crl) 219/2022 and connected petitions.

A review asks the Supreme Court to revisit its own judgment within a limited legal framework. Broader petitions also sought reconsideration of Vijay Madanlal Choudhary and referral to a larger bench. Kaul's account concerns the broader reconsideration proceedings, while the eight review petitions followed a separate course.

On August 25, 2022, a bench led by then Chief Justice N.V. Ramana issued notice in the review proceedings. During that hearing, the bench identified two issues for further consideration: access to the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) and the reversal of the presumption of innocence.

The ECIR is the ED's internal document recording a money laundering case. Access to it matters because it can help an accused person understand the basis of the investigation. The presumption of innocence means a person starts criminal proceedings as someone whose guilt must be established, rather than someone required from the outset to prove innocence.

The court allowed the review petitions to be heard in open court. At a later hearing, Justice Ravikumar questioned whether the exercise would become a "hidden appeal". Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the review petitioners, argued that they should be allowed to explain the errors they alleged in the judgment. Justice Surya Kant said both sides would receive time to argue within the legal issues under review.

How the proceedings moved between benches

The litigation continued through adjournments and changes in bench membership. At a hearing in 2024, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said the review matter had been listed after 9 p.m. the previous night and that the ED needed time to prepare. The bench agreed to adjourn it to August 28, 2024.

That special bench comprised Justices Surya Kant, Ravikumar and Ujjal Bhuyan. A later listing placed the reviews before Justices Surya Kant, N. Kotiswar Singh and Bhuyan after Ravikumar's retirement required the bench to be reconstituted. The hearing was listed for May 7 at 2 p.m.; an outcome from that listing is not established here.

The main stages show how the original ruling, the review petitions and the broader challenges developed:

• July 27, 2022: The Supreme Court upheld major PMLA provisions in Vijay Madanlal Choudhary.
• August 25, 2022: A bench led by Chief Justice N.V. Ramana issued notice in the review petitions and discussed ECIR access and the presumption of innocence.
• Before December 2023: Kaul headed broader reconsideration proceedings that were not completed before his retirement.
• August 2024: The review petitions were adjourned to August 28 after the ED sought preparation time.
• A later May 7 listing: A reconstituted bench included Justice N. Kotiswar Singh following Justice Ravikumar's retirement.

Another bench comprising Justices Khanna, M.M. Sundresh and Trivedi was also handling the broader petitions seeking reconsideration and referral to a larger bench. Keeping the two sets of proceedings distinct explains why different groups of judges appear in the case's history.

The appointments case removed from Kaul's bench

Kaul's second major allegation concerns contempt petitions over delays in judicial appointments. He and Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia had been pressing the government to act on Collegium recommendations and had criticised what they described as a "pick and choose" approach.

The Collegium is the group of senior judges responsible for recommending appointments to the higher judiciary. The government processes those recommendations and has a role in the appointment process, which ends with a presidential warrant. Delays can leave recommended appointments unresolved and judicial posts unfilled.

Kaul said the case was suddenly removed from his bench's cause list, the schedule identifying which matters judges will hear. A Supreme Court Registrar later told him that a file note suggested formal permission from the Chief Justice might not have been obtained when the matter was assigned to him two years earlier. That was the explanation conveyed for withdrawing it.

Kaul said he raised his grievance with Chandrachud. Asked about his memoir's suggestion that the Chief Justice was under pressure, he said Chandrachud must have believed that he should not continue handling the matter. Asked whether the government had nudged the Chief Justice to remove it, Kaul said that was difficult for him to say.

Five agreed names and a disputed sixth

Kaul also described friction inside the Collegium over a proposed appointment list. According to his account, members had agreed on five names to fill six Supreme Court vacancies when Chandrachud proposed a sixth candidate at the last minute. Kaul and the other members did not accept that addition.

During the meeting, Kaul said, Chandrachud took him aside and asked whether he should telephone the government to ascertain its views. Kaul objected to doing so while the Collegium was still deliberating. The five agreed names went through; the sixth did not, according to his memoir.

Kaul suggested that Chandrachud might already have obtained some form of government approval for the names. He presented that as his suspicion. His broader objection was to discussing an entire list with the government before the judges had formally decided whom to recommend.

Kaul, explaining his position in the interview, said the timing and manner of consultation were central:

"I don't think the concept of discussions is bad, but at what stage and in what manner it takes place is the problem," he said.

Kaul warned that a Chief Justice serving a comparatively long tenure could establish a practice that successors with shorter terms would find difficult to resist. He said advance discussions had occurred before and after Chandrachud's tenure, making his criticism wider than their personal disagreement.

A candidate's caste and a disagreement over firmness

Kaul's memoir recounts another disagreement involving a candidate from a minority faith. He said Chandrachud conveyed government questions about the need for further minority representation and about the caste of the candidate's family, despite the family having followed that faith for generations.

Kaul said he found the caste question bizarre and irrelevant. He described closing the file and leaving the room after a further exchange concerning a government view that he did not disclose in the memoir. According to his account, the meeting was adjourned and the candidate eventually went through after the government relented.

Chandrachud said he could not recall Kaul walking out of a Collegium meeting. The former Chief Justice described their exchanges in these terms:

There have been good conversations, reasoned dialogue and we have had affable meetings in the Collegium together.

Chandrachud also said he made a practice of passing a resolution after each Collegium meeting and did not recall recorded dissent in those resolutions. He defended the government's place in the process, pointing to the President's role in formally appointing judges.

Kaul's criticism separated Chandrachud's judicial abilities from his administrative approach. He credited Chandrachud's intellect, capacity and hard work on the judicial side, while arguing that he was too deferential to the government in appointment matters.

Kaul's criticism extends to the appointment system

Kaul said he had proposed a firmer joint approach to government dealings after Chandrachud joined the Collegium in June 2022. In his account, Chandrachud generally preferred to manage that relationship himself.

The memoir cites instances in which direct engagement secured government action, including clearance of two Delhi High Court judges. Kaul's argument is that firmness could produce results without turning the court into a political opponent of the government.

Kaul also expressed support for giving the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) a chance to operate. The Supreme Court struck down that alternative appointments system in 2015. His position accepts a place for government participation while challenging how influence is exercised within the current process.

Another episode concerned senior advocate designations, a professional status granted by the court. Kaul said he later heard that some people had advised delaying the process until after his retirement because he would take a demanding approach. He acknowledged uncertainty about that explanation; the designations took place in January 2024, after he retired.

The central dispute is therefore about institutional decisions with practical effects: which bench hears a challenge to arrest and bail powers, how long appointment recommendations remain pending, and when the government is consulted about proposed judges. Kaul has given a detailed personal account of those decisions. Chandrachud has offered a different recollection of their Collegium relationship while reserving a fuller response until reading the book.

Key Points

• Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul says then Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud urged a middle path in proceedings seeking reconsideration of the 2022 PMLA judgment.
• Kaul says the broader PMLA hearing was unfinished before his December 2023 retirement.
• Eight separate review petitions focused attention on ECIR access and the presumption of innocence.
• Kaul says a judicial appointments case was removed from his bench while it was pressing the government over delays.
• He criticised government discussions before formal Collegium decisions, while accepting a role for consultation.
• Chandrachud described their Collegium relationship as respectful and said he could not recall Kaul walking out of a meeting.