# Justice Kaul tells PM he wanted no post-retirement favours 2026-10-31T14:58:20+00:00 | Governance | Indian Opinion Desk Corroboration: 2 independent outlets Retired Supreme Court judge Sanjay Kishan Kaul has recounted telling Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a meeting that he was pushing for judicial appointments because he wanted nothing after retirement. In his autobiography ‘Without Fear or Favour’, Kaul says Modi told him he might not be right about clearing pending appointments, and after a couple of minutes of dialogue he felt he was pushing the PM too hard. Kaul told The New Indian Express that he then said he could press the point because he wanted nothing after retirement, and Modi replied ‘I know that’. The Times of India interview focuses on Kaul’s broader critique: vacancies at high courts are at 30% and the annual case backlog is rising by 20 lakh. He says government has a major role in appointments and cites the last-minute derailment of Shwetasree Majumder’s Delhi high court judgeship as an example. Kaul argues that appointing more judges alone is not enough, training and procedural streamlining are also needed. ## Indian Opinion Analysis The New Indian Express (TNIE) leads Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul’s account of a tense exchange with PM Modi over pending judicial appointments, framing the judge as a principled outlier versus peers like former CJI Ranjan Gogoi. The Times of India (ToI) instead focuses the interview on systemic breakdown, 20 lakh pending cases a year, 30% high court vacancies, and a specific appointment derailed at the last minute. TNIE emphasises Kaul’s personal independence from post-retirement favours, ToI foregrounds structural dysfunction beyond the government-judiciary tussle. Both outlets cover the same memoir, but TNIE concentrates on the Modi interaction and Kaul’s criticism of CJI Chandrachud, while ToI steers toward the appointment process itself and the broader case pile-up. Neither outlet omits the other’s core point, but each gives its wire story a clear angle. ## Coverage Coverage: 2 sources, 2 neutral - newindianexpress.com (neutral report) Leads with Kaul-Modi exchange, emphasises personal independence - timesofindia.indiatimes.com (neutral report) Leads with systemic judicial breakdown, appointment process failures This brief was synthesised by AI from the 2 sources linked above, so one read covers every framing they carry. Update, 31 October 2026: this story now draws on 2 sources. Last updated 2026-10-31T16:49:06+00:00. Tags: Arun Jaitley, D.Y. Chandrachud, Narendra Modi, Ranjan Gogoi, Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Supreme Court collegium Canonical: https://indianopinion.org/justice-kaul-memoir-reveals-clash-with-modi-on-appointments/ License: Summary and commentary (c) Indian Opinion, reusable with attribution. Facts belong to the linked sources. Cite: https://indianopinion.org/justice-kaul-memoir-reveals-clash-with-modi-on-appointments/#story-in-brief How this brief was made: an AI model read the reports linked above and wrote this summary and analysis, which were published automatically. Published briefs are sampled every hour by an automated quality check; the editor verifies its findings and approves corrections, and corrected briefs carry a dated correction line. Stance labels are editorial classifications of how each outlet framed this story, assigned by the same model, not ratings of the outlets. We do no original reporting. Methodology: https://indianopinion.org/ai-use-policy/