I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Just because you are great at pretending to be another person in front of a camera does not mean you understand foreign policy. Just because you can hit a leather ball really accurately and really hard with a slab of willow does not mean you are an expert on finance. And just because you are brilliant at interpreting a book of rules does not mean you know anything at all about medicine.
In short, your expertise in one area does not automatically transfer into another. Unfortunately, people, both the ones giving the bullshit advice in a field they know nothing of, and those that presume this advice to be valid because the person giving it is good at something else that is unrelated to the advice, are making a mistake.
That said, I’m gutted. This was totally unexpected. And unnecessary. CJI Chandrachud has just fallen a rather long distance in my eyes, not because he’s a bad judge (that is subjective), not even because he’s an ignorant fool when it comes to medicine (it isn’t a crime not to know a subject one isn’t an expert in), and not because he chooses to publicly flaunt this ignorance (many of us do too), but because of the damage he will now cause the advance of scientific temper in this country, already at its near nadir, due to people who see him as an authority figure now taking his word on matters he has absolutely no clue about. Indeed, it won’t be an exaggeration to claim that he might be responsible for causing real hurt, up to and including deaths, due to his ill-informed opinion that he has aired in public.
What a tragedy this is!
P.S.: Yes, this puts a question mark on his abilities as a judge. If he is so incapable of sifting grain from the chaff when it comes to evidence that is clearly and extensively documented and freely available, how do I trust him with judging complex cases where the evidence isn’t so obvious?
