Vice-Presidential Election 2025: Justice B Sudershan Reddy's Salwa Judum Verdict Sparks Controversy

It is unfortunate that a controversy has erupted around a judgement delivered years ago by Justice B Sudershan Reddy, who now happens to be the combined Opposition’s candidate for the vice-presidency. The ruling party has fielded Maharashtra Governor CP Radhakrishnan, and what could have been a healthy democratic contest has been needlessly dragged into a polemical attack.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah fired the first salvo, accusing Justice Reddy of sympathising with Naxalism. As “evidence”, he cited the Salwa Judum judgement, in which a Bench headed by Justice Reddy had struck down the state’s policy of arming tribal boys as special police officers to fight Naxalites. According to Shah, but for that verdict, the Naxal problem would have been eliminated by 2020.

This is a wholly flawed argument. Judges are not policy-makers. Their role is to interpret the law, weigh the evidence, and deliver verdicts within the constitutional framework. Justice Reddy, like every judge, ruled on the basis of what was presented before him—the arguments, the documents, and the testimonies.

To single out one case from his decades-long career in the judiciary and use it as a weapon against him is not only unfair but also unbecoming of someone who holds the high office of Union Home Minister.

It is precisely because judicial reasoning depends on the facts of each case that verdicts can be challenged before larger benches or in appellate courts. What cannot be done, however, is to ask a retired judge to explain or defend his rulings in the heat of a political campaign. Such attacks risk undermining the independence of the judiciary itself.

It is, therefore, no surprise that 18 eminent jurists—including former Supreme Court judges and chief justices of high courts—have come out in defence of Justice Reddy. In a joint statement, they said, “The judgement nowhere supports, either expressly or by compelling implication of its text, Naxalism or its ideology.”

Their intervention makes it clear that Shah’s comments were a misrepresentation, if not a distortion. To his credit, Justice Reddy has maintained dignified silence. Opinions, after all, are not immutable; they evolve over time. Even Mahatma Gandhi once said, “You may take my last opinion as my opinion.”

Union Home Minister Amit Shah Accuses INDIA Bloc’s Vice-Presidential Candidate Justice B Sudershan Reddy Of Supporting Naxalism – VIDEO

In retrospect, Salwa Judum was widely criticised as a violation of human rights and jurisprudential principles. The Court’s intervention was hailed at the time as a step toward a more holistic approach to tackling extremism.

The vice-presidential election should not be reduced to a referendum on a single judgement. What matters is how the occupant of that office can strengthen parliamentary democracy, especially as the Chair of the Rajya Sabha. That is the debate the nation deserves—not an assault on judicial integrity.