Justice Sathasivam sworn in as Chief Justice of India

PTI | Jul 19, 2013, 09.58 AM IST

NEW DELHI: Justice P Sathasivam was today sworn in as the 40th Chief Justice of India (CJI) by President Pranab Mukherjee.

He took over the post from Justice Altamas Kabir, who served as the CJI for over nine months.

Justice Sathasivam, 64, took oath in the name of God at a brief ceremony at Darbar Hall of Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Vice President Hamid Ansari, UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, her Rajya Sabha counterpart Arun Jaitley, NDA Working Chairperson L K Advani, CPI leader D Raja, several Union ministers were present at the ceremony.

Justice Sathasivam was elevated to the Supreme Court in August, 2007 and would demit office on April 26, 2014.

Like his predecessor, Justice Sathasivam is opposed to scrapping of the present collegium system for appointment of Supreme Court and high court judges.

But at the same time, he has admitted that there are drawbacks in the collegium system and efforts can be made to overcome the shortcomings to ensure transparency.

"There are drawbacks, I accept. But these drawbacks can be settled," he had said yesterday.

Born on April 27, 1949, he enrolled as an advocate in July 1973 at Madras and was appointed as a permanent Judge of the Madras high court in January, 1996.

Later, he was transferred to the Punjab and Haryana high court in April, 2007.

Sathasivam for more women, SC/ST judges

Dhananjay Mahapatra, TNN | Jul 18, 2013, 01.15 AM IST

NEW DELHI: Chief Justice-designate P Sathasivam on Wednesday said he would favour relaxation of stringent selection criteria to see more Judges in SC and HCs from among women, SC, ST and OBCs, in a not-so-subtle pitch for caste/community/gender-based quotas in the recruitment of judges to higher judiciary. 

"There is no provision for the reservation for women and backward classes in appointment of judges to the higher judiciary. For long, there had been very little space for these sections in the higher judiciary. Appointing them as Judges in theSupreme Court and the high court without compromising the basic merit criteria would reflect country's social diversity and would send a healthy signal to the society at large," justice Sathasivam told TOI just two days before he takes oath as the 40th Chief Justice of India (CJI). 

The CJI-designate said, "I am all for relaxing the selection criteria. As the next Chief Justice of India it is my responsibility to convince the apex court collegium the need for giving meritorious among the backward classes a small helping hand." 

He elaborated by saying that while backward class members who have chosen a career in law and aspiring to be Judges must help themselves by equipping themselves to satisfy basic requirements for selection as a judge before demanding their pie in the form of representation in higher judiciary, the collegium of SC judges who decide appointments to higher judiciary can help by relaxing the criteria in such cases. 

"Those who have strived to work hard despite facing hardship, we can give some concession," he said. 

Justice Sathasivam explained that the relaxation could be in the form of lowering the criteria adopted for other candidates, which included consideration of their gross annual income and the rate of case disposal in the last three years. 

There has been a dearth of women Judges in the Supreme Court, it has had just five of them, two sitting women judges — Justices Gyan Sudha Mishra and Ranjana P Desai included — in the 63 years of its existence. It was in 1989 that the Supreme Court got its first woman judge in justice Fathima Beevi. Her appointment was followed by Sujata V Manohar and Ruma Pal. 

India got her first dalit CJI in K G Balalkrishnan in 2007 but selection of judges from backward classes had been rather infrequent. 

Justice Sathasivam spoke strongly against the political affiliations influencing the court judges must eschew political connections and leanings. "They should not be politically linked," Justice Sathasivam said of those aspiring to be judges. 

Justice Sathasivam will take oath as CJI on July 19 and have a tenure of little over nine months. He said he would write to all chief justices on this issue and seek their views.

Justice Sathasivam first judge from Tamil Nadu to become CJI

Chief Justice of India-designate P. Sathasivam in New Delhi on Saturday. Photo: V. Sudershan

J Venkatesan : New delhi: 29 June 2013

He will be sworn in on July 19 as 40th CJI

President Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday appointed Justice P. Sathasivam, seniormost judge of the Supreme Court, the 40th Chief Justice of India.

He succeeds Altamas Kabir, who retires on July 18, and will have a brief tenure of about nine months.

Justice Sathasivam, 64, is the first judge from Tamil Nadu to become the CJI. Justice M. Patanjali Sastri, who served as CJI from November 1951 to January 1954, represented the undivided Madras Presidency.

Justice Sathasivam never served as Chief Justice of a High Court as he was elevated directly to the Supreme Court on August 21, 2007, when he was serving as a judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

Hailing from Kadappanallur village, Bhavani taluk in Erode district of Tamil Nadu, Justice Sathasivam belonged to an agricultural family. He was the first graduate in his family and the first law graduate in his village. He was appointed a permanent judge of the Madras High Court on January 8, 1996. As a High Court judge, though he handled all types of cases, he disposed of more cases in service, labour and accident claim matters. On April 20, 2007, he was transferred to the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

He will be sworn in as CJI on July 19, 2013. He is due to retire on April 26, 2014.

As a Supreme Court judge, Justice Sathasivam has delivered some landmark judgments on matters of national importance which include Reliance Natural Resources Ltd. vs. Reliance Industries Limited wherein he emphasised the use of natural resources through public sector undertakings. He observed that “in a national democracy like ours, the national assets belong to the people” and “the government owns such assets for the purposes of developing them in the interests of the people.”

In Rabindra Kumar Pal alias Dara Singh vs. Union of India case, he dealt with the triple murder case of Australian Christian missionary Graham Stuart Staines and his two minor sons. This judgment concluded with the hope that Mahatma Gandhi’s vision of religion playing a positive role in bringing India’s numerous religions and communities into an integrated prosperous nation be realised by way of equal respect for all religions.

In another valiant pronouncement in Md. Khalil Chisti vs. State of Rajasthan, he set aside the Pakistani national’s conviction under Section 302 IPC and allowed him to go back to his native country.

In the Mayawati vs. Union of India case, he held that the Central Bureau of Investigation exceeded its jurisdiction in lodging FIR of disproportionate assets against Mayawati in the Taj Corridor matter and the same was quashed as being illegal.

In a number of judgments, he cautioned the courts against awarding lesser sentence in crimes against women and children and showing undue sympathy towards the accused by altering the sentence to the extent of period already undergone.

In the Mumbai blasts case, Justice Sathasivam convicted Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt to five years’ imprisonment under the Arms Act and he was asked to serve out the remaining sentence.

As executive chairman, National Legal Services Authority, he visited several States and created awareness on people’s rights and entitlement. He inaugurated several legal literacy camps in rural areas, schools and colleges.

Keywords: P. Sathasivam, Chief Justice of India appointment, Altamas Kabir