When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging!

The first rule of excavation is that when you find yourself in a hole, you should stop digging. It appears, however, that our venerable chief justice, who has now seen the (saffron) light, has not heard of this truism, notwithstanding his vast knowledge and learning. He continues to excavate, somewhat like the Archeological Survey of India, probably hoping to  strike Hindutva bedrock.

With his "legacy" already under the public scanner, one would have expected him to lie low and weather the storm. Instead, just last week, he has publicly gone on record to gloat that (a) he authored the Ayodhya Ram Mandir judgment and (b) that he had prayed to God for a solution to this thorny issue, and the "solution" was promptly sent to him by the deity, presumably via Blinkit or Zepto.

Predictably, this confession has raised another fire storm, with eminent lawyers and even retired judges coming down on him like a tonne of the famed Ram Mandir bricks.

His revelation, as far as I know, is only the second judicial epiphany after Moses was handed the Ten Commandments by a burning bush on Mount Sinai, with the difference that the directive principles of the commandments have now been replaced with the binding Ayodhya judgment; after all, it is a tenet of spirituality that divine revelation always precedes divine authorship.

And since the chief justice himself has implicitly attested to the authorship of this SC judgment, the epiphany itself must be acknowledged. But the fecundity of the implications of this spiritual communion is mind boggling; this piece attempts to unravel some of them.

India must be the only country in the world which now has two of its top leaders in direct communion with God: the prime minister (who is probably God incarnate) and the chief justice. We must consider ourselves exceptionally fortunate in this respect, though we still don't know with whom our third pillar of democracy — the presiding officers of the two houses of Parliament — communicates. The evidence points to either Johnny Walker or Alfred E. Neuman (of MAD magazine fame), but I could be wrong.

The Hindu pantheon reportedly has 330 million gods (not including our prime minister) so it would be interesting to know which particular deity the chief justice consulted. There is also a problematic dimension to this, as was raised by Karan Thapar in a question to retired justice Rekha Sharma of the Delhi High Court: if it was indeed Ram lalla (as most people suspect), then is not the whole Ayodhya judgment vitiated, since Ram lalla, through his "next friend" is a party to the dispute?

Even by our dismal standards of jurisprudence, we can hardly have a judge consulting one of the petitioners in a case as to what type of order he should write! Justice Sharma would not be pinned down on this question, but she was obviously uncomfortable with the point raised by Thapar. It would be interesting now, wouldn't it, if some lawyer were to file a curative petition in the SC on this point to challenge the judgment?

Justice Sharma was, however, emphatic that Justice Chandrachud's admission had lowered the image of the court. What if it had been a Muslim or Christian or Sikh judge claiming that he/she had consulted his/her God before writing a judgment?

There would have been a majoritarian outrage, charges of 'judicial jihad' would have been bandied about by the likes of the Assam chief minister whose career is based on his study of jihads, and all manner of bhakts would have descended on Jantar Mantar like the proverbial 'Shiv ji ki barat'. In contrast, the present chief justice will, in all probability, be well rewarded for his epiphany. One good turn, or about-turn, deserves another.

Will every court now have a temple attached to it, for ease of doing judicial business? After reserving a judgment, the concerned bench could repair to the temple (the five-star hotel with the bar comes later), confer with the deity of choice, and then announce the order.

Or better still, why have these pesky and expensive courts at all, which are nothing but convenient venues for gangsters to shoot down their rivals? Replace them with temples and head priests who will function as the registry and convey divine orders.

We could adopt the Himachal model for this, where the 'devtas' speak through their spokesmen or 'gurs', and tell the simple Himachalis what to do. I would suggest that a committee of judges should go to the remote Malana village in Kullu to study this model.

Right now, the 'gur' of Jamblu devta has told the government that the devta does not approve of the Kullu-Bijli Mahadev ropeway; in years past, it was the gur who also approved the tour programmes of officials who wished to visit Malana on duty!

The complexity of the Pandora's box opened by CJI Chandrachud is mind boggling. There are approximately 17,000 judges in India; what if each one of them decides to consult his or her family god before passing judgment? There is also a strict hierarchy of gods and goddesses in our religion, which you tamper with at your own peril.

This shall make the whole appellate process of our jurisprudence chaotic. What if the god of the trial judge is superior in the divine hierarchy to the god of the appellate judge? Whose judgment will prevail? And how will a bench ever come to a final conclusion on a matter if the respective gods of the member judges are unable to agree? What if the senior most god (not judge) on that bench insists on exercising a veto, as the US does on Israel?

No, sir, this new jurisprudence will not work, not even in Naya Bharat. The Ayodhya judgment must be struck down as non-est. A Joint parliamentary committee should be immediately constituted to investigate whether the gods were also consulted while passing orders on a host of other cases — rejection of the EVMs petitions, denial of bail to Umar Khalid, upholding the abolition of Article 370, multiple rejections of bail applications of the Bhima-Koregaon 'accused', junking the Rafale case on the basis of sealed covers and redacted statements, papering over the charges against Adani and SEBI in the Hindenberg exposé, giving the quietus to the Pegasus inquiry report, the disembowelling of the Places of Worship Act, the refusal to investigate the mysterious death of Judge Loya, and so on.

We must know whether we are still a democracy or have silently, through a judicial coup, become a theocracy.

And Justice Chandrachud, of course, should stop digging, for he will be sorely disappointed in his attempts to uncover a destroyed Hindu temple under the Supreme Court. WHEN YOU FIND YOURSELF IN A HOLE, STOP DIGGING!

Views are personal

Avay Shukla is a retired IAS officer and the author of Disappearing Democracy: Dismantling of a Nation and other works. He blogs at avayshukla.blogspot.com