Events & Personalities
From the bar to the bench
Fifty-eight-year-old Rohinton Nariman was administered the oath of office by Chief Justice of India R. M. Lodha, along with Justices Arun Mishra, 59, and Adarsh Kumar Goel, 61, before the three assumed charge as Supreme Court judges on July 7, 2014. Nariman is only the fifth lawyer to be directly elevated to the apex court from the bar in the history of the judiciary in the country.
Former solicitor general of India and the son of eminent jurist Fali Nariman, Rohinton will have a term of about seven years, mentioned The Indian Express in a report on July 8, 2014. He became solicitor general of India at the age of 55 but quit the post after 18 months, allegedly because of poor rapport with the law minister. During his felicitation on that appointment by the Bombay Parsi Punchayet at Cusrow Baug on November 4, 2011, retired Justice Sam Variava congratulated the government on its good sense in appointing Nariman and told the audience, "You may be felicitating not just the solicitor general but the future chief justice of India” (see "The Law — sacred and secular,” Parsiana, November 21, 2011). Senior solicitor Dadi Engineer was more prophetic. Speaking of Nariman’s "meteoric rise” in the Supreme Court where a long standing rule precluding a man from becoming senior counsel before the age of 45 was amended by Chief Justice of India Justice Venkatachalaiah to permit 37-year-old Rohinton to don the mantle, he said: "It has been rumored in the Supreme Court that he would be a direct recruit from the bar to the bench.”
Justice Rohinton Nariman: "meteoric rise”
Former solicitor general of India and the son of eminent jurist Fali Nariman, Rohinton will have a term of about seven years, mentioned The Indian Express in a report on July 8, 2014. He became solicitor general of India at the age of 55 but quit the post after 18 months, allegedly because of poor rapport with the law minister. During his felicitation on that appointment by the Bombay Parsi Punchayet at Cusrow Baug on November 4, 2011, retired Justice Sam Variava congratulated the government on its good sense in appointing Nariman and told the audience, "You may be felicitating not just the solicitor general but the future chief justice of India” (see "The Law — sacred and secular,” Parsiana, November 21, 2011). Senior solicitor Dadi Engineer was more prophetic. Speaking of Nariman’s "meteoric rise” in the Supreme Court where a long standing rule precluding a man from becoming senior counsel before the age of 45 was amended by Chief Justice of India Justice Venkatachalaiah to permit 37-year-old Rohinton to don the mantle, he said: "It has been rumored in the Supreme Court that he would be a direct recruit from the bar to the bench.”
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