Justice Kurian Joseph retires, shares the secret of his smile

NEW DELHI: Justice Kurian Joseph's characteristic smile did not wilderness him when he sat for the last time as a part of a Supreme Court bench on Thursday and the enigma of his smile, which calmed the frayed nerves of attorneys during arguments for almost six years, turned into the purpose of debate.

I n maintaining with tradition, Justice Joseph joined a bench led through CJI Ranjan Gogoi in court docket number one on his last day in administrative center. Just seven instances had been listed for the day and the bench whizzed via it in 10 mins. Attorney normal Okay Okay Venugopal shifted center of attention to Justice Joseph's smile and mentioned, "We will miss you and your smile."

The emotional second did not wipe the smile from Justice Joseph's face and the court cases had been recorded on cellphones through a couple of of his kinfolk provide within the front rows. Former attorney normal Mukul Rohatgi's comment succinctly described Justice Joseph's popularity amongst attorneys, "I will request the CJI to ensure that Justice Joseph's replacement has a similar smile."

Before stepping down from the bench after five years and eight months as an SC pass judgement on, Justice Joseph shared the name of the game of his smile. "When you smile, all others smile at you. These join to become a mile of smile and one feels life is worth a smile," he mentioned.

It won't were a smiling revel in when Justice Joseph, in conjunction with Justices Gogoi, J Chelameswar and Madan B Lokur, held an unheard of press convention on January 12 at Justice Chelameswar's place of dwelling to whinge in opposition to then CJI Dipak Misra's manner of functioning. This was cited as one of the causes through the Congress when it moved a understand for elimination of CJI Misra in Rajya Sabha. It was rejected through the Vice-President, who may be the RS chairman. Justice Joseph time and again puzzled, both within the collegium and outside, the Centre's ways in delaying appointment of then Uttarakhand leader justice KM Joseph as a pass judgement on of the SC. The govt in any case blinked and cleared the appointment.

Justice Joseph, who recently took the quantity 10 slot on the listing of SC judges with the highest judgments, was a part of two constitution benches that made up our minds instances of historical significance - constitutional validity of National Judicial Appointments Commission and triple talaq.

In the NJAC case, he leaned for retention of the collegium gadget for collection of individuals for appointment as judges of the SC and HCs. However, he supported the lone dissent penned through Justice Chelameswar declaring opaqueness and arbitrariness in collection of SC and HC judges through the collegium gadget. He had supported ushering in of "glasnost and perestroika" within the collegium gadget.

In the triple talaq case, he was instrumental in turning the decision in favour of putting down the practice as unconstitutional.

While then CJI J S Khehar and Justice S Abdul Nazeer had upheld validity of triple talaq, Justices R F Nariman and U U Lalit squared up the case through terming the practice unconstitutional.

Justice Joseph in his 27-page judgment, as compared to the 272 pages of Justices Khehar and Nazeer, carried the majority verdict in opposition to triple talaq. Adopting an straight forward means, Justice Joseph mentioned triple talaq was no longer sanctioned through the Quran and, therefore, no longer a part of Islamic non-public regulation practices. As it was no longer a part of Islam, triple talaq could no longer enjoy constitutional protection beneath Article 25 ensuring right to faith, he had dominated.