NEW DELHI, Oct 3:
Justice Ranjan Gogoi was sworn in as the 46th Chief Justice of India today after which he did some plain-speaking, saying unless someone is set to be “hanged or evicted” mentioning of cases in the Supreme Court for urgent hearing will not be entertained till certain parameters are fixed.
Justice Gogoi also said filling up of vacancies in courts to help reduce pendency of cases was not a problem but “the solution lies in getting the right man, and the right man will come only if the office maintains its aura and dignity.”
Gogoi, 63, becomes the first person from the Northeast to reach the top position of the judiciary and will have a tenure of a little over 13 months. He will retire on November 17, 2019.
President Ram Nath Kovind administered the oath to Justice Gogoi at a brief ceremony in Rashtrapati Bhavan’s historic Darbar Hall.
Justice Gogoi took the oath in English in the name of God. He succeeds Justice Dipak Misra who retired on Tuesday after attaining the age of 65 years.
Several leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his predecessor Manmohan Singh and former Premier H D Deve Gowda were present at the ceremony.
“I congratulate Justice Ranjan Gogoi ji on taking oath as the Chief Justice of India. His experience, wisdom, insight and legal knowledge will benefit the country greatly. My best wishes for a fruitful tenure,” Modi tweeted.
Justice Misra had earlier this month recommended Justice Gogoi as his successor in accordance with the established practice of naming the senior-most judge after the CJI for the top post.
Speculation over Justice Gogoi’s appointment as the next CJI arose after the court’s four most senior judges, including Justice Gogoi, called a press conference on January 11 and criticised Justice Misra on various issues, especially the manner of allocation of cases to certain benches.
Justices J Chelameswar (since retired), Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph were the others who addressed the press conference, perhaps a first in the history of the Indian judiciary.
After the swearing-in ceremony, Justice Gogoi came to the Supreme Court and presided over the bench along with Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph in Court number 1 which is the CJI’s court. He greeted the lawyers with a smile in the packed courtroom.
With lawyers waiting in a queue to mention cases for urgent hearing, Gogoi said, “No mentioning. We will work out the parameters then we will see as to how mentioning will be done.”
The CJI further said: “If somebody is going to be hanged or evicted tomorrow then we can understand (the urgency). Otherwise there will be no mentioning.”
Earlier, the mentioning of cases used to continue for 20 to 30 minutes everyday before the bench headed by Justice Misra.
Later, Justice Gogoi spoke at an event organised by the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) to felicitate him on his elevation as the country’s top judge.
Justice Gogoi said he was trying to “evolve a system” along with his colleagues to produce better results in an effort to reduce pendency of cases and expressed the hope to fill up vacancies in the subordinate courts within three to four months.
“Let me tell you. Me and my colleagues are trying to evolve a system which can produce better results. We are working on it. We started working on it sometime back and may be in a couple of days, we will have it. We are trying to reduce the time between filing of cases and the listing of cases. We are trying to introduce a system by which the cases were not get dropped from the list,” Justice Gogoi said.
Born on November 18, 1954, Justice Gogoi, who belongs to Dibrugarh in Assam, enrolled as an advocate in 1978. He practised in the Gauhati High Court on constitutional, taxation and company matters.
He was appointed permanent judge of the Gauhati High Court on February 28, 2001.
On September 9, 2010, he was transferred to the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The following year, on February 12, 2011, he was appointed Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court and then a judge of the Supreme Court on April 23, 2012.
Justice Gogoi, later in the day, came out with a new roster allocating cases to various benches, and decided that the Public Interest Litigations (PILs) will be heard by him.
The new roster also made clear that a bench headed by Justice Madan B Lokur who is next in seniority to him, would also hear PILs earmarked by the CJI.(PTI)
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