Justice Kureshi: Deserved To Serve As A Supreme Court Judge
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2022-03-08 15:24:18
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Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
View all posts by this Author
Justice Akil Kureshi has retired. His final posting was as the Chief Justice of Rajasthan High Court. His must be one of the rarest instances in recent times of a judge serving in several constitutional courts, attaining seniority and yet not getting the chance to serve as a judge in the Supreme Court. Not only that, the issue of his elevation to the Supreme Court so divided the collegium that all judge elevations came to a complete halt for nearly two years due to the differences.
As the former CJI Ranjan Gogoi had written in his autobiography that Justice Kureshi could not be elevated to the highest court in the country as the government had a negative perception of him based on his judicial pronouncements, Justice Kureshi said in his farewell speech that it does not matter to him what the government thinks but what matters is what his peers and the judicial fraternity thinks. To him, the government's negative perception was like a "certificate of independence".
What Justice Kureshi said is correct. If his peers or the lordships making up the collegium had a negative perception about him, did they communicate it to him? They overlooked his wide experience and seniority and recommended 8 others who were junior to him. Although there is no rule that a judge be elevated as per seniority but it is done as per convention because senior judges are experienced and deserve to be on the Supreme Court bench in most cases unless they retire before their chance comes.
Further, did the Centre have a negative perception only because Justice Kureshi had the 'temerity' to rule against Amit Shah and send him to police cvustody in the Sohrabuddin Shaikh encounter case? That would amount to prejudice of the worst kind. The body of Justice Kureshi's judicial pronouncements does not allow anyone to form a negative perception of him as a judge. It is sad that one of the finest judicial minds was prevented from serving as a Supreme Court judge.
