KG Balakrishnan will succeed YK Sabharwal as Chief Justice of India on January 14, 2007.
Updated at 11.40 pm
NEW DELHI: KG Balakrishnan will succeed YK Sabharwal as Chief Justice of India on January 14, 2007. President APJ Abdul Kalam notified Justice Balakrishnan’s elevation on Friday. The CJI-designate was attending a function for destitute children in Kottayam district when the notification was issued.
Balakrishnan, the first Dalit to hold Indian judiciary’s highest office, will serve for three-and-half-years, the second long-est after Justice YV Chandrachud’s term of over five years.
Balakrishnan said his most significant ruling was his direction to all states to provide mid-day meals to children up to Class V. “Balakrishnan comes from a poor family and toiled to reach the highest legal position,” said a lawyer who preferred to remain anonymous.
In his rulings, Balakrishnan is said to adopt a strict legal and constitutional approach based on precedents. For instance, he recently dissented from the majority view of four judges that the presidential proclamation dissolving the Bihar Legislative Assembly was unconstitutional.
Balakrishnan held that the President had rightly dissolved the assembly after it was kept in suspended animation by Buta Singh, the state’s governor.
In another case, he dismissed the PILs filed by RJD chief Lalu Prasad’s adversaries seeking cancellation of his bail. The PIL had challenged the Patna high court’s appointment of special CBI judge Muni Lal Paswan to hear the disproportionate assets case against Prasad. Paswan recently acquitted Prasad and his wife Rabri Devi of the charge.
Balakrishnan had sentenced two Maharashtra sisters accused of killing several children to death, saying that alive, they would be a menace to society.
In his pronouncement on a case of gutka, Balakrishnan asserted that “it does not entitle citizens to carry on trade or business in activities which are immoral and criminal and in goods which are obnoxious and injurious to health, safety and welfare of the general public. There cannot be any business in crime.”
Upholding the principle of free and fair justice for all, Balakrishnan has said that “the existence of an independent accountable judiciary by itself is not enough to protect citizens against abuse of power”.
He said people’s legal rights would remain theoretical if institutions charged with enforcing them are inaccessible. “There is a need for the legal movement in this direction,” he said.
Balakrishnan has buttressed investigators’ power to help them deal with pressures mounted under the garb of certain legal provisions. He has said that accused don’t enjoy ‘unfettered right’ to acquire all the investigation documents. “Public interest demands that such an entry (case diary) is not made available to the accused for it might endanger the safety of informants and it might deter informants from giving any information to assist the investigating agency.”
Know your CJI
KG Balakrishnan is currently the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court
He will be the first Dalit to occupy the post of CJI
He will replace Chief Justice YK Sabharwal who is retiring on January 14, 2007
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