Amit shah did not ignore CJI Chandrachud’s greetings, screengrab from I Day function viral with false claim

Several dignitaries including the Prime Minister and the Chief Justice of India attended the Independence Day celebrations held at the Red Fort. Against this backdrop, a picture is viral on social media in which Supreme Court Chief Justice DY Chandrachud is folding his hands in front of home minister Amit Shah, while Shah is looking in a different direction. Many users shared the picture with sarcastic comments. Inherently, they wanted to draw attention to the fact that apparently, the home minister was ignoring the CJI’s greetings.

Several Right Wing accounts and social media handles shared the picture. Among them were Ashutosh Dubey, head of BJP Maharashtra’s social media and legal advisory department, founder of political keeda Ankur Singh, Yo Yo Funny Singh, Hum Bharat Ke Log, and @oldschoolmonk.

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Samajwadi Party leader IP Singh tweeted the viral picture and wrote, “We have inherited the etiquette and civility of past generations. We don’t care if you keep ignoring our namaskar for six more months. At the Red Fort, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Sri DY Chandrachud is paying respects to the Home Minister, not Amit Shah himself. (Archived link)

 

A number of senior journalists also shared the image, including Sheila Bhatt, Pankaj Jha, and Prabhakar Kumar Mishra. Bhatt termed it the “sweet and sour relationship between the judiciary and the government”. It is worth noting that all these tweets contain the same screengrab.

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Fact Check

Taking a closer look at the image, it becomes evident that it has been captured from a video. The volume icon in visible at the bottom right corner. Alt News also noticed that many users had shared a video by news agency ANI in reply to the viral picture.

When we watched the full video, we found that the viral picture is a screengrab taken from the same video. In this longer video, it can clearly be seen that home minister Amit Shah and his wife stood up from their seats when Chief Justice DY Chandrachud arrives. Following this, Shah greets him with folded hands and shakes his hand. After this, Justice Chandrachud greets Shah’s wife with folded hands. When he was greeting the home minister’s wife, Shah was facing forward. The same frame was captured and shared without context with the claim that DY Chandrachud was standing next to home minister Amit Shah with folded hands, but the latter ignored him.

#WATCH | CJI DY Chandrachud and Union Home Minister Amit Shah greet each other at Red Fort during Independence Day celebrations pic.twitter.com/3EhYKb9GXC

— ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2023

After being called out by social media users, senior journalist Pankaj Jha deleted his tweet while Prabhakar Kumar Mishra said that he had shared the image in appreciation.

To sum up, several social media users, politicians and journalists shared a screenshot of Supreme Court Chief Justice DY Chandrachud greeting home minister Amit Shah’s wife with folded hands on the occasion of Independence Day celebrations with the false claim that he was greeting Shah himself and was being ignored.

In July 2022, a video clip of the farewell ceremony of President Ramnath Kovind was circulated with a similar false claim that PM Narendra Modi had insulted him by ignoring his greetings.