Honoring the Legacy of Justice BK Mukherjea: A Reflection on India's 79th Freedom Celebration
Justice Bijan Kumar Mukherjea, born on India's Independence Day, served as the fourth Chief Justice of India from 1954 to 1956. His tenure, albeit short-lived, left a profound impact on the moral foundation of Indian Constitutionalism.
Mukherjea's judgments were marked by institutional modesty, balancing autonomy and accountability. In the landmark case of Ameerunnissa Begum v. Mahboob Begum (1952), he planted the roots of substantive equality, anchoring Article 14 in fairness, not just classification. If Justice Mudholkar sowed the seeds of the basic structure doctrine, then Mukherjea in Ameerunnissa Begum laid the conceptual foundation for substantive equality.
In this 1950s judgment, Mukherjea carefully distinguished between pre-Constitutional royal decrees (firmans) and post-Constitution legislation. He recognized the transitional authority under Article 385 but insisted that this authority could not override constitutional guarantees of equality. This interpretation laid the conceptual foundation for substantive equality, ensuring that the state’s power is exercised with fairness and not solely through formal categories.
Despite the importance of Ameerunnissa Begum in planting the roots of substantive equality as fairness, the case has been surprisingly overlooked in later arbitrariness jurisprudence and mainstream discussions of equality law in India.
Beyond this case, Mukherjea’s constitutional jurisprudence also included influential judgments on religious freedoms and autonomy. Notably, he originated the essential religious practices (ERP) doctrine in The Commissioner, Hindu Religious Endowments, Madras v. Sri Lakshmindra Tirtha Swamiar of Shirur Mutt (1954). His interpretation of religious liberty rights was highly regarded by eminent legal scholars like Motilal Setalvad for articulating the true scope and precision of constitutional protections of religion.
Over six decades later, Justice Rohinton Nariman named Mukherjea alongside Lord Mansfield and Justice Marshall as jurists who defined the judicial ethos of their times. In the words of Justice Benjamin Cardozo, Mukherjea stood firm in the tide of legal issues, holding the line. In the Supreme Court, Mukherjea held that legislation was unreasonable and discriminatory, violating the equal protection clause, and laid the conceptual foundation for the arbitrariness doctrine in Article 14.
In the 1955 Tagore Law Lectures in Calcutta, US Supreme Court Justice William O Douglas drew a constitutional line from Chief Justice John Marshall to Chief Justice Mukherjea. Mukherjea passed away in 1956 after a year into his tenure as Chief Justice, leaving no memoirs or ideological following. However, his work left a lasting imprint on constitutional law, with his judgments demonstrating great erudition, deep and exact knowledge, thorough exposition of the law, and rectitude bordering on saintliness.
In recent years, the ERP doctrine has come under scrutiny, with the Sabarimala review and the pending In Re: ERP reference seeking to revisit its doctrinal viability. Despite these challenges, Mukherjea's scholarly and principled constitutional outlook continues to guide Indian Constitutionalism, shaping its moral and doctrinal spine in its formative years. Mukherjea was a distinguished lawyer, a pre-eminent judge, and a gracious and God-like human being.
In the realm of education-and-self-development and personal-growth, Justice Mukherjea's tenure as Chief Justice of India, although briefly lived, significantly contributed to learning about the importance of substantive equality and fairness in Indian law. His landmark cases, such as Ameerunnissa Begum v. Mahboob Begum (1952) and The Commissioner, Hindu Religious Endowments, Madras v. Sri Lakshmindra Tirtha Swamiar of Shirur Mutt (1954), bear testament to this scholarly and principled constitutional outlook, which continues to shape Indian Constitutionalism even today.
