- Thursday, March 06, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Dhananjaya Yashwant Chandrachud, who took over as India’s 50th chief justice in November, recently made a big revelation about his younger days.
Speaking at an event in the coastal Indian state of Goa last week, the 63-year-old judge said he had moonlighted as a radio jockey for All India Radio, the country’s national public radio broadcaster, in his early twenties.
According to Justice Chandrachud, he had hosted shows such as ‘Paly It Cool’, ‘Date with You’, or ‘Sunday Request’.
“Not many are aware of this but I moonlighted as a radio jockey in my earlier twenties in All India Radio doing programs like ‘Play it cool’ or ‘A date with you’ or ‘Sunday requests’,” the chief justice, the son of Justice YV Chandrachud, India’s longest-serving chief justice between 1978 and 1985, said at the event, according to reports.
Moonlighting refers to taking up another job alongside the current employment.
On a lighter note, the chief justice joked that he still listens to music at home daily after he is “done with music of the lawyers”.
“My love for music persists even today. So after I am done with the music of the lawyers which is not always music to the ears, I go back back and listen to music which is music to the ears , every day of my life,” the chief justice said.
Justice Chandrachud, who succeeded Justice UU Lalit, will serve at the helm of Indian judiciary till November 2024.
The chief justice was speaking after inaugurating the first academic session of the India International University of Legal Education and Research in Goa, an initiative of the Bar Council of India.
Before getting appointed to India’s apex court in 2016, Justice Chandrachud was the chief justice of the Allahabad High Court for around two-and-a-half years. He was appointed as a judge of the Bombay High Court in 2000.
Earlier in his career, he was designated as a senior advocate in 1998 and later also appointed as the additional solicitor general up till he got elevated as a judge.
