Covering the Supreme Court

Transcript:

Hello everyone and welcome to SCO’s channel. I’m Spandana. Today’s video is a little different. Instead of focusing on a specific case or an order by the Supreme Court, I’ll be talking about what it’s like to cover the Court itself. So please stay with me.

In August this year, the number of pending cases before the Supreme Court crossed the 88,000 mark. For some context, when I joined the Supreme Court Observer in January 2023, that number was about 78,000 cases. So that’s about a 10,000 case increase in less than three years. But one of the many things I’ve learnt while covering the Court is that numbers tell only part of the story. My first report at the SCO was on the challenges to the anti conversion laws. I was only a few days into the job, frantically scribbling notes as lawyers talked over each other. Then Chief Justice DY Chandrachud tried to restore order. In that report, I wrote that he was making sense of a chaotic hearing. I soon came to think of this phrase as a kind of job description.

Many of the high profile cases I covered after that, from marriage equality, Article 370, property owners, sub classifications within reserved categories, and even division bench matters like the Kolkata hospital rape and murder case, and more recently, the Waqf amendment challenges all unfolded with the same texture of chaos. Packed courtrooms, sweeping opening statements, sprawling arguments, constant interjections and detours into history. In my initial days here, my colleague Gauri helped me understand that our job was to speak clearly through the chaos, to make sense of the legal intricacies that were showcased and sometimes couched, accessible to the average citizen.

And to keep asking the question that our founding editor, Dr. Sudhir Krishnaswamy, requests be centered in our reporting. So what? Now, that question is deceptively simple. The professor and human rights lawyer Conor Gearty, who died recently, wrote that the best legal writing has a musical feel to it. The writer takes you on an exhilarating ride towards a full grasp of something previously opaque to you: No wrong turnings, no cul de sacs, no loose ends. But court hearings rarely follow this rhythm. So reporters piece together hours of oral arguments supplemented by written pleadings. Editors like my colleague Vikram distill them into coherent arcs. And fact checkers like my colleague Ajitesh and previously Sushovan point out what we’ve missed. Sometimes, especially on themes we’re personally invested in, we’re left wondering just what all the brouhaha in court actually amounted to.

The marriage equality verdict, for instance, disappointed sexual minorities by stopping short of recognising their right to marry. The much discussed pan India protocol for the safety of Doctors is yet to see the day of light. The promise of restoring Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood made the course of the Article 370 hearings, but it remains unfulfilled. So yes, it is easy to be frustrated by this pattern of grand pronouncements followed by incremental or no change. Cleaner victories and sharper defeats are simpler to capture in a headline. But what I’ve come to realise is that change in a constitutional court rarely feels like an earthquake. It looks more like erosion, noticed only if you return to the landscape years later. I’ve often arrived at these moments of epiphany while reading the work of my senior colleague V. Venkatesan, who has, amongst other things, written this account of all the presidential references before the Supreme Court since 1950. On the occasion of the 79th Independence Day.

My colleague Advay wrote that sometimes we marvel at how far we’ve come. At others we wonder how we’ve remained stuck in the pattern and preoccupations of the past. All these contestations, allegations, repetitions in court, now, in my more charitable moments, (read when I don’t have a 9pm filing deadline) I’ve come to see these as the buzz of democracy at work. The Court, like India, is inexhaustible. Recently it stayed key provisions of the 2025 Waqf Amendment Act. In the coming weeks, it will pronounce an advisory opinion on the Governor’s powers before CJI BR Gavai’s impending retirement. On this case, my colleague Namrata’s reporting is a must read. The Court will also hopefully weigh in conclusively on Bihar’s contentious electoral revision process. The SCO team will continue to report and provide context on these cases that matter. So stay tuned, after all, to understand just how India negotiates itself on grand matters of power, justice and change, there’s nothing quiet like the Supreme Court beat. You can read this piece of mine and several others on the SCObserver website.

Thank you for watching and goodbye.