On his last working day, seniormost judge of the Supreme Court Justice J Chelameswar sat with the Chief Justice of India (CJI), with whom he had many run-ins, but not all things played out as per convention.
With 11 matters listed on the board, the CJI-led Bench finished all business in less than 30 minutes and set a record of sorts by clocking the shortest time taken to dispose matters on a usually busy Friday. Justice Chelameswar, who had refused to accept the farewell invitation in his honour arranged by the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), failed to receive the customary farewell address from the SCBA members as he rose from the court, perhaps the last time in his over six-year tenure at the apex court.
Instead, words of praise for the judge came from advocate Prashant Bhushan, who addressed him as the fearless upholder of democracy. Bhushan’s remarks echoed the sentiments of his father, former law Minister Shanti Bhushan who heaped praise on Justice Chelameswar on his retirement. Others who made up for the absence of SCBA office-bearers were senior advocate Rajeev Dutta who thanked Justice Chelameswar for upholding the ideals
of the institution and finally, young lawyer Gopal Sankaranaraynan who recalled the magnanimity shown by the judge when junior lawyers argued cases.
Justice Chelameswar had etched his name in history as the judge who openly spoke against the lack of transparency in the working of collegium. Not only did he script a dissenting view in favour of National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) in the famous verdict by the apex court striking it down as unconstitutional, he stood by his point by refusing to participate in collegiums meetings.
On January 12 this year, the nation saw an unprecedented scene on the television screens when four senior most judges of apex court met at the residence of Justice Chelameswar by making a hurried exit from the court and addressed a press conference questioning the discretionary allocation of politically sensitive cases to “select” Bench by the CJI in exercise of his authority as master of roster. later, this became one of the grounds that the Opposition utilised to seek impeachment of the CJI. As he exited the court, Justice Chelameswar, with folded hands, sought pardon for being sometimes harsh to lawyers while deciding cases.