Who among India's judges has written a book, and what they wrote. Memoirs, lectures and legal works by Chief Justices and other judges, one judge at a time, best-known first. Last checked 22 October 2026.
Where to start
Gadbois, Judges of the Supreme Court of India. Not by a judge, but the best way to place every other entry.
H. R. Khanna, Neither Roses Nor Thorns. First-hand account of the Emergency-era Court by its best-known dissenter.
P. Jaganmohan Reddy, The Judiciary I Served. Insider view of Kesavananda Bharati and the bank nationalisation case.
P. B. Gajendragadkar, To the Best of My Memory. A CJI on the early Court and its constitutional preoccupations.
M. Hidayatullah, My Own Boswell. Anecdotal memoir of a judge, CJI and Vice-President.
M. C. Chagla, Roses in December. The Bombay bench, the Bar and public life, before and after Independence.
Mehr Chand Mahajan, Looking Back. Early Court history and Partition-era politics from the third CJI.
V. R. Krishna Iyer, Wandering in Many Worlds. The reformist strand of the Court in his own words.
V. R. Krishna Iyer, Law and Social Change: An Indian Overview. Short and representative of his social-justice jurisprudence.
Leila Seth, On Balance. A woman's route to the bench; readable beyond the law.
Ranjan Gogoi, Justice for the Judge. The most recent CJI memoir before Patnaik's. Contested, so read it with critical commentary.
G. B. Patnaik, The Gown and the Gavel. A short-tenure CJI's account of three courts.
K. Chandru, Listen to My Case!. Gender and the trial court, seen by a judge who was earlier an activist lawyer.
Rohinton Nariman, The Inner Fire. Judges' intellectual lives run beyond law.
Remembered for his lone dissent in the Emergency-era habeas corpus case (ADM Jabalpur). His memoir and lecture books are the main first-hand record of how he saw the Court and the judicial process.
Neither Roses Nor Thorns
1985 · Eastern Book Company, Lucknow (later editions 2010, 2011)
Memoir: the Emergency and the ADM Jabalpur dissent
Making of India's Constitution
1981 · Eastern Book Company; 2nd edition 2008
The Judiciary in India and Judicial Process
1985 · Ajoy Law House, Calcutta (Tagore Law Lectures)
The best-known voice of the Court's social-justice tradition, and a prolific author. The titles below are those confirmed so far; his full output is far larger.
Wandering in Many Worlds
2009 · Pearson Education (Longman), ISBN 9788131718353
