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Ramesh Menon in New Delhi
Justice Sam Piroj Bharucha was on Thursday sworn-in as the Chief Justice of India succeeding Justice Dr A S Anand, who retired on Wednesday.
President K R Narayanan administered the oath of office to Justice Bharucha at a simple ceremony at Ashoka Hall in the Rashtrapati Bhawan, attended by Vice-President Krishan Kant, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and other top dignitaries.
Justice A S Anand served as the CJI for a little more than three years after assuming the post in October 1998.
Justice Bharucha is highly respected in legal circles.
Legal experts regard Justice Bharucha as a strict Constitutionalist. Former Chief Justice of India A M Ahmadi told rediff.com: "Justice Bharucha is a strong, upright judge who likes to go by the letter of the law."
Supreme Court lawyer Shanti Bhushan echoed a common feeling when he said: "Justice Bharucha is a conservative judge and would rather err on the side of caution. Some lawyers find him rather caustic, but that is only because he cannot suffer or tolerate any nonsense."
Justice Bharucha has a deep sense of integrity and believes in probity in public life, Shanti Bhushan said. "He has a sharp intellect and robust common sense; he has sound knowledge of the law and does not believe in writing unnecessarily long judgments. He has all the qualities to be an excellent Chief Justice."
Fali Nariman, one of the nation's leading constitutional experts, believes Justice Bharucha has done well as a judge with his courage and wisdom. He only did what he thought was right without bothering about what others felt, his integrity is all that mattered, Nariman said.
It was Justice Bharucha who recently passed the historic judgment, quashing J Jayalalithaa's appointment as chief minister of Tamil Nadu.
Justifying Jayalalithaa's appointment, her counsel K K Venugopal argued that voters in Tamil Nadu felt her conviction was irrelevant and as the people's will was supreme, she could become chief minister.
Justice Bharucha shot back, saying the people's mandate could not subvert the Constitution. Asserting the supremacy of the judiciary, a five-member Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Bharucha said it could debar corrupt and convicted individuals from holding Constitutional offices.
Another important judgment the judge delivered was one in the Veerappan case. After the bandit abducted Dr Rajkumar, the Karnataka government began withdrawing various cases against Veerappan and his associates, to hasten the Kannada superstar's release from captivity. It was Justice Bharucha who ruled that the state government could not withdraw the cases against Veerappan.
Shanti Bhushan points out that Justice Bharucha showed his concern for the downtrodden and the rule of law in his minority judgment in the Narmada case. The judge said environmental aspects were important and government guidelines for such huge projects were often overlooked with rehabilitation and environment considerations not taken care of.
Justice Ahmadi said it was unfortunate that the new Chief Justice would only have a tenure of six months, with two court vacations in between. This, he felt, would come in the way of Justice Bharucha taking up any long term project to reform the high courts and trial courts.
"But he could concentrate on short term reforms, which can have an impact on the backlog of cases.
Besides, on the judicial side, there are very important issues referred to the Constitution bench, which would have far reaching implications on being finalised. For example, there are some cases which have a direct bearing on the freedom of the individual where draconian laws are concerned," the former CJI pointed out.
Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan said one of the challenges before Justice Bharucha was to tackle the lack of accountability of judges and the mounting court delays.
Shanti Bhushan said many legal experts hoped Justice Bharucha would start the process of restoring the administration of justice in India to its old glory. "His major challenge," he said, "is to deal with delays in judgments, which has reached monstrous levels."
Legal activist Rani Jethmalani, who is chairperson of the Women's Action Research and Legal Action for Women, says Justice Bharucha comes in at a critical time in the Indian judiciary's history. Though the new Chief Justice will be in office for only six months, Jethmalani feels he has enough time to make an impact and take initiatives in legal reform that could be followed upon by his successors.
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