Former Chief Justice of India Sarosh Homi Kapadia, who delivered a landmark judgement in the Vodafone case and headed a three-member bench of Supreme Court that quashed the appointment of Chief Vigilance Commissioner PJ Thomas in the year 2011, died of a cardiac arrest here on Monday night.
Justice Kapadia was 68 and is survived by wife Shernaaz, a son and a daughter. His funeral was held as per Parsi tradition late on Tuesday afternoon at ‘Tower of Silence’ at Kemps Corner, South Mumbai. The judges and staff members of the High Court were among those who attended the last rites.
Mourning Justice Kapadia’s death, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted: “A fine legal mind who enriched our judiciary, former CJI Shri SH Kapadia’s contribution will always be remembered. Pained by his demise. RIP”. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley stated in his condolence tweet: “I am saddened by the demise of Former CJI Sh. SH Kapadia, a legal luminary, who set the highest standards of ethics, integrity & hard work.”
Kapadia, who was 38th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from May 12, 2010 and September 28, 2012, was known for his honesty, unimpeachable integrity, no-nonsense approach and forthrightness. He delivered several landmark verdicts including the Vodafone case and that the one in which a three-member bench of apex court headed by quashed the appointment of the then Chief Vigilance Commissioner PJ Thomas.
Born in then Bombay & now Mumbai in 1947, Justice Kapadia came a long his way in his judicial career-from being a class-IV employee to becoming clerk in lawyer’s office and ending up as the CJI.
Having graduated from Government law College, Mumbai became a lawyer in September, 1974, after briefly being a class-IV employee, a law clerk with Gagrat & Co, a law firm, as a clerk and working with Feroze Damania.
After having been appointed as the Additional Judge of the Bombay High Court on October 8, 1991, Kapadia was promoted as a permanent Judge of the high court on March 23, 1993.
On August 5, 2003, he became the Chief Justice of the Uttarakhand High Court. On December 18, 2003 he was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court. On May 12, 2010, Justice Kapadia was sworn in as the Chief Justice of India, a post held till September 28, 2012. During his stint as the Supreme Court, Justice Kapadia was involved 834 judgments and orders, of which he authored 262.
On January 20, 2012, a three-member division bench of the Supreme Court reversed a Bombay High Court judgement asking Vodafone International Holding to pay income tax of `11,000 crore on a deal abroad and directed the tax authorities to `2,500 crore deposited by Vodafone in compliance of its interim order within two months.
In another landmark verdict given on March 2, 2011, a three-member SC bench headed by Justice Kapadia quashed the appointment of chief Vigilance Commissioner P J Thomas made by a high power committee comprising by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Home Minister P Chidambaram and leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj (who dissented). The judgement caused considerable embarrassment to the then Manmohan Singh government.
Justice Kapadia was part of a three-member SC bench that decided a PIl filed by two NDA leaders seeking the cancellation of bail of RJD chief lalu Prasad Yadav and his wife and former Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi for their interference in the judicial process in the disproportionate assets (DA) and Income Tax cases against them.
The verdict, by majority of 2:1, went in favour of Prasad. Known for his no-nonsense approach and zero-tolerance towards corruption, Justice Kapadia gave a dissenting judgement saying the income tax department should have filed an appeal against the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) order.
Justice Kapadia was very forthcoming in his public utterances. A true nationalist, Justice Kapadia, speaking at an Independence Day function in the Supreme Court, had said: “I am proud to be an Indian. India is the only country where a member of the minority Parsi community with a population of 1,67,000, like myself, can aspire to attain the post of the Chief Justice of India. These things do not happen in our neighbouring countries”.
Alluding to his own poor background, Justice Kapadia had said once: “I come from a poor family. I started my career as a class IV employee and the only asset I possess is integrity”.
Delivering a lecture on Jurisprudence of Constitutional Structure”, Justice Kapadia had said: “Right to life, we have said, includes environmental protection, right to live with dignity. Now we have included right to sleep, where are we goingIJ It is not a criticism. Is it capable of being enforcedIJ When you expand the right, the judge must explore the enforceability”.
