Justice JS Khehar to be first Sikh CJI
NEW DELHI: Justice JS Khehar, who led the five-judge bench that had struck down the controversial National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act, was on Tuesday recommended by Chief Justice of India (CJI) TS Thakur to be his successor.
Although no formal order has been issued, CJI Thakur, sticking to the established convention, has forwarded the recommendation to the law minister.
Conventionally, the seniormost judge of Supreme Court is appointed the CJI and Justice Khehar currently holds that distinction. Justice Khehar will be sworn in as the head of Indian judiciary on January 4, 2017, a day after Justice Thakur demits office. Justice Khehar will be the first Sikh CJI and will hold the post till August 28. He will be the 44th CJI.
His appointment comes at a time when the judiciary and executive have failed to arrive at a consensus over the new procedure to appoint judges. Both have been at loggerheads since the October 2015 judgement when the apex court struck down the NJAC Act, brought in to end decades-old collegium system where judges appointed judges. The court had asked the government to frame a new memorandum of procedure (MoP) – under which judges are hired.
But the MoP continues to be a bone of contention as the judiciary is opposed to the government’s suggestions of giving executive the power to decline a recommendation to appoint a judge on the ground of national security and to set-up a secretariat that will assist the SC collegium to scrutinise the applicants.
“It’s possible that Justice Khehar is able to work out a solution since the new collegium headed by him will consist of at least three judges, including him, who heard the NJAC case and asked the Centre to alter the MoP,” a source said.
Be it lawyers or former judges at the Punjab and Haryana high court, most remember chief justice of Indiadesignate justice JS Khehar as a hardworking and competent lawyer, a self-made person, who was destined to scale new heights. Coming from the firstgeneration family of lawyers, justice Khehar’s has always remained far from controversies, recall members of the legal fraternity in Chandigarh.
After completing his master of laws (LLM) from Panjab University, Chandigarh, justice Khehar joined at the Bar in 1979 and practiced till February, 1999, when he was elevated as additional judge of the Punjab and Haryana high court. “His views have always been consistent, but not orthodox at the Bar and later as a judge in the high court and now in the Supreme Court,” says senior advocate Anupam Gupta, who has seen him as a member at the Bar and later argued before him in many matters.
Many say that being a firstgeneration lawyer, it was a tough journey for him. But a hardworking and competent justice Khehar remained honest and a straightforward person.
Though justice Khehar mainly dealt with service matters, he also took up company cases, among others and appeared in high courts of Punjab and Haryana, Himachal, Delhi and the Supreme Court. He had a brief stint as additional advocate general, Punjab, and later as senior standing counsel, Chandigarh, before he was designated as senior advocate in February 1995.
In February 1999, he was elevated as additional judge of the Punjab and Haryana HC. “He is self-made man. He was very competent as a lawyer. I have never heard of any controversy about him,” says justice Amarjeet Chaudhary (retd), before whom justice Khehar had appeared as a lawyer .
He remained acting the chief justice of the Punjab and Haryana high court twice in 2008 and 2009 and was elevated as the chief justice of Uttarakhand high court in November 2009. He was transferred to the Karnataka high court in August 2010, before being elevated as a Supreme Court judge in September 2011.
“He would let you argue, even if he disagrees, but would never lose his cool. This is the best quality we lawyer see in a judge,” recalls senior advocate Rajiv Atma Ram.
He has authored many noteworthy judgments and one of them is about the Sehajdhari Sikhs in 2009 in which a bench presided over by him held that prescription of the precondition of maintaining “Sikhi swaroop” is a permissible precondition for admitting students under the Sikh minority community quota. “He was encouraging as a senior judge and would write his judgments with clarity,” says a retired judge.