New Delhi: Justice Sarosh Homi Kapadia was on Friday appointed as the next CJI by President Pratibha Patil. He would take oath as CJI on May 12 to succeed Justice K G Balakrishnan. If Justice Balakrishnan was the first from the Dalit community to head the judiciary, then Justice Kapadia would be the first CJI born after India gained independence. To be exact, Justice Kapadia was born 45 days after India became independent. Justice Kapadia is going to head the judiciary after a long journey, which started in the corridors of the lower courts of Bombay nearly 36 years ago in Sept.1974. He was appointed as a judge of the Bombay High Court on October 10,1991, and as chief justice of the Uttarakhand HC on August 5,2003, before being elevated to the Supreme Court on Dec.18,2003. He is due to retire on Sept.29,2012.
On the day he was designated as next CJI, three more judges Justice H L Gokhale, Justice Gyan Sudha Mishra and Justice AR Dave took oath as judges of the Supreme Court. Most CJI-designates have articulated their concerns, priorities and future plans about judiciary on the day they were designated as CJI. Not Justice Kapadia, who believes in implementing his blueprints quietly, away from the media glare. But his blueprint has a major portion devoted to improving the pitiable working condition of the trial court judges fighting the menace of nearly 2.8 crore pending cases. My heart goes out to the trial court judges who in remote areas are working even without a fan in this scorching summer, Justice Kapadia had said just a few days back. Unlike many judges, his reading habits are spread over subjects as myriad as religion, philosophy, economics, physics and finance. And unlike many judges, he has had a strong liking, rather affinity, for money matters taxation and finance. There is hardly a lawyer who could get away spinning economic or financial jargon in a taxation matter before Justice Kapadia, who in a Bench for last several years has mainly concentrated on deciding such cases.
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(source-toi)
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