Bar & Bench India: One interesting aspect that stands out in the interplay of popular culture and the law is the heavy reliance on Bob Dylan.

By Major Navdeep Singh and Professor (Dr) Shruti Bedi

Singers, poets and minstrels have alluded to justice – especially social justice – since days of yore. Lawyers and judges returning the melodic favour in their work, however, is not that old. The wit and the soul and the lyric render the ‘court of record’ an entirely new denotation.

One interesting aspect that stands out in the interplay of popular culture and the law is the heavy reliance on Bob Dylan. From Chief Justice of the United States John G Roberts Jr citing Bob Dylan in his dissent in Sprint Communications v. APCC Services (2008) albeit misquoting the actual lyric as “when you got nothing, you got nothing to lose” instead of “when you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose”, to Justices Dama Seshadri NaiduProtik Prakash Banerjee and Siddharth Mridul of the Kerala, Calcutta and Delhi High Courts respectively, invoking him in their judgments, the Minnesotan has flourished in the jurisprudential milieu. And this is in addition to his anthems lending sustenance to civil rights movements all around the world since the 1960s. Agreeable seems the hypothesis, therefore, of Chief Judge Mark W Klingensmith of the Florida Court of Appeal and the author of the book Lyrics in the Law, when he opines in an interview with Judicature (Duke Law School, 2020) that judges tend more to quote songs popular during their formative years in college and law school.

Interestingly, Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, despite being a self-confessed Dylan fan, aptly cited Leonard Cohen’s Democracy in Navtej Singh Johar v Union of India (2018) rather than his favourite. However, while bidding adieu to his colleague Justice MR Shah on his retirement, the Chief Justice’s penchant for the music legend came forth in his speech – “when the winds of changes shift, may your heart always be joyfulmay your song always be sung, may you stay forever young.” Notably, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul recently beckoned Bon Jovi’s It’s my Life in his minority opinion in Supriyo alias Supriya Chakraborty v. Union of India (2023).

Particularly in Indian judgments, Sahir Ludhianvi is oft quoted. Justice Markandey Katju cited Ludhianvi in Budhadev Karmaskar v. State of West Bengal (2011). Poetry, of course, is no stranger to Indian jurisprudence- Justice Katju also recited Mirza Ghalib the same year while faced with the dilemma on the question of euthanasia in the matter of Nurse Aruna R Shanbaug. “Marte hain aarzoo mein marne ki, Maut aati hai par nahin aati (One dies longing for death but death, despite being around, is elusive)” was the impactful opening line of the judgment.