Justice Rohinton Nariman retires after glorious innings as a jurist

Justice Rohinton Nariman retires after glorious innings as a jurist

He leaves behind a trove of judgements that will be remembered and referred to by the progeny

Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman's glorious career in the judiciary comes to end following his retirement as a Judge of the Supreme Court of India today.

Born on 12 August 1956, he turned 65 today, the superannuation age under the rules for judges in India.

Justice Nariman leaves behind a trove of judgements that will be remembered and referred to by the progeny due to his extraordinary mind as a jurist and being a champion of free speech, privacy and personal liberty, gender justice and clean politics.

"I feel like I am losing one of the lions that guarded the judicial institution," Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana said while presiding over the traditional three-member bench of the Apex Court while bidding adieu to a colleague. Justice Nariman, who was the second senior-most judge after the CJI, sat on the bench along with Justice Surya Kant.

Son of noted jurist Fali Nariman, Justice Rohinton Nariman joined the bar in 1979. He was graduated in commerce from the prestigious Sri Ram College of Commerce of Delhi University and did his law course from the Law campus of the same university before he did post-graduation from Harvard School of Law. It was a tribute to his extraordinary calibre that he was designated as a senior lawyer of the Supreme Court by the then CJI Venkatachaliah in 1993 by amending the existing rules that prescribed a minimum age of 45 before a lawyer can be designated as a senior judge. He is also on the shortlist of five lawyers who moved straight from the bar to the bench of the Supreme Court in July 2014. He served as a Supreme Court judge for a little over seven years and disposed of 13,556 cases including some 500 pathbreaking judgements that he delivered.

"He practiced law for 35 years before being elevated to the Bar and was the fifth counsel to be directly elevated to the Bar. As a judge of the Supreme Court, he has disposed of 13,565 cases! I am a little overwhelmed at expressing my thoughts. On his retirement, I feel like I am losing one of the lions that guarded the judicial institution; one of the strong pillars of the contemporary Judicial System. He is a man of principles and is committed to what is right. I look forward to his continued contribution to his immense contribution to the field of law," Chief Justice Ramana said.

Justice Nariman was appointed S Solicitor General of India in July 2011 for three years. However, he quit in February 2013 due to apparent differences with the then law minister Aswani Kumar but preferred to keep the reason to himself.

Among his litany of memorable judgements include the August 2017 majority judgment by him and two others that held as unconstitutional the centuries-old practice of instant triple talaq or talaq-e-biddat system prevalent among the Muslim community of India that went on to empower Muslim women who were at the receiving end of the system. That same very month also witnessed a nine-judge bench, including him, rule unanimously in the landmark Aadhar case that "privacy is intrinsic to freedom of life and personal liberty guaranteed under Article 21 of Constitution".

Another landmark judgement associated with Justice Nariman includes decriminalising homosexuality in 2018 in which he was categorical that "persons who are homosexual have a fundamental right to live with dignity… are entitled to the protection of equal laws, and are entitled to be treated in society as human beings without any stigma being attached to any of them".

A Constitution bench composing Justice Nariman struck down Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code In September 2018 that made adultery a punishable offence for men, saying the 158-year-old law was unconstitutional and fell foul of Article 21 (Right to life and personal liberty) and Article 14 (Right to equality).

He was part of the bench that delivered the 4:1 verdict in the famous Sabrimala shrine case in September 2018 in which he spoke on gender rights while the verdict decided to do away with the restrictions imposed on women of a particular age in the shrine on the name of tradition.

Notably, Justice Nariman belonged to the tiny Parsi community which numbers about 61,000 presently in India. Remarkably, he is among several noted jurists the community has produced over the years.

It is said that he not only did not mince words but also was very clear in this thought. He would not take more than two-three days in dictating the judgement after reserving it.

"The first-ever counsel I briefed in the Supreme Court was Justice RF Nariman...Be it comparative study of religions, Constitutions or whichever subject, his Lordship's exceptional brilliance and integrity will be remembered for centuries to come," Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said.

He will be remembered indeed forever for his contributions to enriching the judicial system in India.