K Chandru: A comrade who donned black gown to ensure social justice

A retired judge, who fought pro bono case relating to the custodial death of Rajakannu, has always stood for the oppressed

Krishnaswami Chandru has been a rebel throughout his life – be it as a student activist, as a senior advocate, or later as a judge of the Madras High Court.

Not just the Rajakannu-Parvati case, now gained national attention thanks to the blockbuster movie ‘Jai Bhim’ where Tamil actor Suriya plays the real-life role of advocate Chandru, the retired judge who had always stood with the oppressed.

As a senior advocate of the Madras High Court, Chandru had in 1993 taken up pro bono case relating to the custodial death of Rajakannu, who belonged to the Kurava community but shown as irulas (primarily snake catchers) in the film 'Jai Bhim', at the instance of his wife Parvati who met him at a protest event in Neyveli.

The habeas corpus filed by Chandru – who never took any money from litigants for fighting such cases – led to the delivery of justice to Rajakannu’s wife Parvati after the court concluded that the tribal man was indeed killed in police custody and sent the policemen responsible to 14 years in jail.

In his 40s then, Chandru, by then a popular name in the corridors of the famed Madras High Court, knew all odds were stacked against him in the case with police maintaining that they did not know the whereabouts of Rajakannu after he “disappeared” from their custody. The “powerful system” tried every possible way to scuttle the proceedings including offering a bribe to Chandru for not pursuing the case.

As Suriya brought alive the angry young rebellious lawyer on screen, the first thing that came to Chandru’s mind is the “rich court hall no. 3” of the High Court where he argued his first major human rights case in 1977 before the Ismail Commission of enquiry.

“I was also stunned to see as to how a movie can transform one of the many cases into a larger canvas and serve a social purpose. Art can also be for people is the first thing that struck me,” Chandru tells DH.

Born in 1951 in Srirangam near Tiruchirappalli, Chandru lost his mother Saraswathi at the young age of 5 and his father Krishnaswamy at 15.

Having been attracted to Marxist ideology at a very young age, college life brought out Chandru’s rebellious self within out – he was suspended from the Loyola College in Chennai for participating in protests. He then joined the Madras Christian College to complete his UG course during which he developed an excellent rapport with Communist veterans like A K Gopalan and V P Chintan as a student leader.

Chandru never had any plans to pursue higher education after completing his UG as he wanted to serve the poor. But how he ended up as a lawyer has a backstory.

“Chandru was actively involved in a case relating to the death of a student in the Anna University in the early 1970s. As he appeared before a Commission that was probing the student’s death regularly, the additional judge got impressed with his groundwork and advised him to join a law college through the bench clerk,” one of Chandru’s friends told DH.

As a CPM cadre, Chandru not just opposed the Emergency but also completed with perfection a task given by his party during the period. Chandru was entrusted with ensuring the “safe journey” of party veterans, E K Nayanar and E Balanandan to Kerala from Tamil Nadu in January 1976, days before the then DMK government, which opposed Emergency, was dismissed.

Always outspoken and as someone who could never fathom “injustice”, Chandru often paid a price for being his candid self – he was expelled from the CPM for speaking against the 1987 Indo-Sri Lanka Accord while his party supported it. It is said the party was willing to take him back if he apologised but refused to do so.

Chandru says his training as a social activist after being attracted by Marxist ideology “deeply enriched” his social philosophy and that he took cases with broader social themes seriously to leave his rubber stamp over them.

70-year-old Chandru – he doesn’t like his name to be pre-fixed with Justice – never appeared for big corporates and had always used his legal acumen to fight for the poor and downtrodden. During his stint with the Madras High Court, first as an additional judge and later as judge, Chandru became the darling of the masses as his judgements transformed the lives of people from the underprivileged sections of society.

Chandru was appointed as an additional judge in 2006 not before two similar attempts by the Madras High Court in 2001 and 2004 failed due to “various reasons.” He was promoted as a judge in 2009 and retired in 2013.

Honest and transparent to the core, Chandru published his assets in the public domain after assuming charge as a judge and the day he retired and shunned all colonial symbols still in practice in the judiciary. He objected to lawyers addressing him as ‘My Lord’, dispensed with the practice of a mace bearer announcing the judge’s entry to the court hall and took a suburban train back home on the day he retired after surrendering his official car.

Among his achievement is clearing 90,000 cases during his tenure – Chandru reached the court 15 minutes earlier and left only an hour after the proceedings were over.

What was his mantra? Chandru says no mantras can substitute hard work. Since the Madras High Court had six lakh cases pending when he took over, the major work was to clear the backlog.

“I had stopped the pernicious practice of lawyers seeking adjournments at the drop of a hat. I had also increased my court hours and worked an equal number of hours at home. Personally, I went to the registry and grouped matters which requires common disposal,” he said.

Ever since he hung his boots on March 8, 2013, Chandru spends his retirement life reading books, dishing out legal advice to junior lawyers, articulating his views on various through newspaper columns, and attending public events with a social cause.

Chandru still believes in the Marxist understanding of the society and the need to search for additional tools for scientific understanding of issues in a country like India where the concept of caste has a new bearing.

”In that way, my Marxist understanding gave me the correct perspective to know Ambedkar,” he says.

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