'Had no problem with judges, was raising institutional issues,' says Justice Chelameswar

“I was raising certain institutional issues. A line is to be drawn there. That’s all,” he added.

In January’s press conference, Chelameswar, along with the other three judges had said that Indian democracy is in danger.

"The four of us are convinced that unless this institution is preserved and it maintains its equanimity, democracy will not survive in this country," Chelameswar had said.

In a separate interview to India Today, Chelameswar reacted to allegations of him being involved with the opposition, by saying that who met him was “immaterial.”

“The more important question would be, who is meeting those who are in power?” he said.

Chelameswar also said in the interview to India Today that after serving 42 years in the judiciary, parting with the institution has made him a “little lost”.

Previously, the retired judge had declined to attend collegium meetings during Justice TS Thakur’s tenure as CJI, citing opaqueness and lack of objectivity as the reasons.

Chelameswar had also written a letter to Justice JS Khehar’s during his tenure as the CJI, complaining about the selection process of the collegium.

“If you (Justice Khehar) believed these collegium meetings are beyond all principles of law propounded by their court, God save this country,” he had written in the letter.

Acting on these lines, Chelameswar was the only dissenting voice in 2015 that ruled in favour of the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC).