Vice Presidential Contest is About Constitutional Values, Not Ex-Judges’ Opinions

Focus Must Remain on Legality of Salwa Judum Verdict and Role of VP in Democracy

August 29, 2025

The opposition’s Vice Presidential nominee, Justice B. Sudershan Reddy, has been accused of supporting Naxalism, or Maoism, for delivering a 2011 Supreme Court verdict that declared Chhattisgarh’s Salwa Judum militia unconstitutional. The charge has led to a public exchange between retired judges, but the real question is whether that ruling and the standards for selecting a Vice President align with constitutional principles and democratic theory.

The Salwa Judum judgment, authored by Justice Reddy, held that deploying armed civilian groups to fight Maoist insurgents violated Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution, which guarantee equality before the law and the right to life. The verdict ordered Chhattisgarh to dismantle the militia and reaffirmed that policing and use of force must remain within lawful, accountable state institutions.

The ruling has not been legally challenged or overturned and remains in force.

Salwa Judum was a state-supported militia movement launched in 2005 by the Chhattisgarh government under Chief Minister Raman Singh. It involved arming and mobilising tribal civilians, many of them allegedly minors, to conduct anti-Maoist operations in conflict-affected areas. These recruits were often designated as Special Police Officers with little training or legal oversight.

The movement was widely documented for serious human rights violations, including forced displacements, extrajudicial killings and destruction of villages. Its structure bypassed formal police and military institutions, placing coercive power in the hands of civilians operating outside the constitutional chain of accountability. This breakdown of lawful state function was a key factor in the Supreme Court’s decision to declare it unconstitutional.

More than a decade later, the Home Minister claimed this judgment prolonged the Maoist insurgency and accused Justice Reddy of ideological bias. In response, 18 retired judges issued a statement condemning the misinterpretation of a binding court verdict, according to media reports. A day later, 50 retired judges allegedly responded with a letter asserting that judicial independence should not shield a political candidate from criticism. They argued that by entering the electoral field, Justice Reddy had invited political scrutiny.

Both sides of the judicial debate focus on how a retired judge should be treated in public discourse, but this shifts attention from the actual constitutional issues involved. The core issue is not whether criticism is permissible but whether the verdict in question upheld the law and whether public office is being treated with the seriousness that a constitutional democracy requires.

The Salwa Judum case posed a direct challenge to the state’s use of coercive power outside constitutional structures. A fundamental feature of the modern state is its monopoly over the legitimate use of physical force, exercised through professionalised institutions such as the police and armed forces. This monopoly is bound by law and subject to accountability. By contrast, a militia refers to an armed group that is not formally part of the state’s security apparatus. The Court found that the state had effectively outsourced its coercive authority to civilians operating outside this constitutional framework.

The decision was not an exercise in ideology. It was a reaffirmation of the rule of law, which is the foundational doctrine of constitutional democracies. The rule of law requires that all public power be exercised through legally authorised institutions, subject to checks and safeguards. In this case, the state had created a parallel force that escaped those safeguards. The judgment corrected this departure and restored constitutional balance.

To mischaracterise this reasoning as political partisanship is to ignore the separation of powers, a central concept in both political science and constitutional design. This doctrine holds that the legislature, executive and judiciary must remain institutionally distinct to prevent the concentration and abuse of power. The judiciary’s role is to adjudicate state action against the Constitution, regardless of the political implications. Judicial decisions are not immune to critique, but they must be assessed through legal reasoning, and not partisan reinterpretation.

The debate also raises the question of constitutional morality, a term coined by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar to describe the need for actors in a democracy to uphold the values and spirit of the Constitution, beyond mere technical compliance. Appointing a Vice President must reflect institutional competence, meaning a demonstrated ability to understand and uphold constitutional procedures, values and responsibilities.

The Rajya Sabha, over which the Vice President presides, is a legislative chamber where procedural fairness and neutrality are critical. Candidates for the post should be assessed by these standards, not by electoral convenience or political messaging.

The debate also concerns the expectations of the Vice President’s office. The Constitution does not prescribe ideological conditions for the role, but it presumes an adherence to democratic values and institutional responsibility. The Vice President must uphold procedural neutrality and constitutional literacy. A candidate’s judicial record should be evaluated on whether it reinforces constitutional principles, not on how it aligns with electoral politics.

Reducing the nomination to a question of political loyalty undermines the gravity of the office. It risks setting a precedent where any candidate with a history of challenging the executive’s actions, however lawfully, is cast as unfit. This weakens constitutional democracy by penalising lawful dissent and rewarding political conformity.

Public debate over institutional roles must remain grounded in law and democratic theory. The central concern is whether the Salwa Judum judgment protected constitutional order and whether the candidate for Vice President demonstrates an understanding of the responsibilities the office demands. Personal opinions and partisan labels do not answer these questions. Constitutional reasoning does.

You have just read a News Briefing by Newsreel Asia, written to cut through the noise and present a single story for the day that matters to you. Certain briefings, based on media reports, seek to keep readers informed about events across India, others offer a perspective rooted in humanitarian concerns and some provide our own exclusive reporting. We encourage you to read the News Briefing each day. Our objective is to help you become not just an informed citizen, but an engaged and responsible one.